


Made for Each Other

by pristineungift



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe, Bloodplay, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Family Drama, Multi, Red String of Fate, Sexual Content, Torture, Vampire!Willow - Freeform, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 05:53:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristineungift/pseuds/pristineungift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike is doing his very best <b>not</b> to brood about the chip the Initiative put in his head, when Angel comes knocking at his door with a gift from Drusilla. The next thing he knows, he's on a road trip with a vicious new companion who claims to love him. She needs a mentor, and he... he just needs someone to take care of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Written in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place right after Spike is implanted with the chip, but before he develops any feelings for Buffy. After that it goes wildly, gloriously AU.

_My world is planned around you,_

_It had to be, this romance of ours;_

_And, long before I found you,_

_Your name and mine had been written in the stars._

 

- _Made for Each Other_ , Xavier Cugat

 

**-l-**

 

**Part I: Written in the Stars**

Spike was lazing in his crypt, telling himself that staring at the ceiling and stewing about his recent misfortunes didn’t count as brooding and didn’t make him anything like his poof of a grandsire, when he felt a tingle at the back of his neck.

He sat up, looking toward the door.

 _Speaking of Peaches_ …

The door burst open and there Angel was, with a smaller, cloaked form behind him.

“What the hell do you want?” Spike asked without any real venom in his voice.

Sometimes it seemed like there was no longer a point.

“I need your help,” Angel told him. There was desperation in the older vampire’s face.

Spike sneered and made a show of flopping back down. He closed his eyes. “Got no reason to help you.”

“Spike,” Angel started, only to stop when the cloaked being – vampire, and female, Spike could tell by scent – stepped forward and reached for Spike.

He dropped into game face and snarled at her, letting her feel his power as a master vampire.

She giggled, then cooed at him in a familiar voice, “So pretty, so strong. Just like Mummy said.”

Spike looked to Angel. Angel looked away.

Standing, Spike drew the smaller vampire close and pushed back her hood, revealing pale skin, scarlet hair, and green eyes that sparkled with wicked intelligence.

_Willow._

“Red?” Spike asked.

“Spike,” she returned, leaning forward to nuzzle his neck. He let her, automatically wrapping an arm around her waist. She was wearing a silky green shirt with a black vest, and black leather pants. Boots gave her some added height, allowing her to more easily reach Spike’s throat.

“The hell did you do, Peaches? And can I be there when you tell the Slayer?”

Willow was licking his jugular, then, getting bolder, she nipped at it, getting a taste of Spike’s powerful blood. He growled at her, sliding his arm up to put his hand over her mouth. “Be a good girl.”

She smiled against his fingers. “If I’m bad, will you punish me?”

Spike felt his lips part in surprise, before he laughed. “Bloody hell. If I’d known you were going to be so cheeky, Red, I’d have turned you years ago.”

“This isn’t funny, Spike!” Angel burst, moving further into the crypt. He sat on Spike’s bed and put his head in his hands.

“Maybe not for you, but it’s damn well hilarious for me,” Spike countered. “Let me guess – you got yourself a bird up in L.A., and Angelus came out to play.”

“It wasn’t me,” Angel said dully. “It was Drusilla.”

That got Spike’s attention.

And Willow’s too.

“Mummy?” the redhead looked up, a spark of hope in her eyes. “Is Mummy coming back? Granddaddy’s no fun.”

“I know he’s not, pet,” Spike said soothingly before replacing his hand over Willow’s mouth when she tried to bite him again. They were playing an unspoken game. Every time he let her go, she resumed burying her face in his neck, which he allowed until she got nippy.

“What about Dru?” he addressed to Angel.

Angel sighed. “Willow was supposed to be coming to L.A. to help us with a spell. When she didn’t arrive in time, I went out looking for her. I don’t know how Dru got her, but by the time I found the both of them…”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Dru say anything?”

It wasn’t Angel, but Willow who answered. “The stars whispered to Mummy that her Dark Prince was in danger. His crown was broken and his castle is burning. He needed a new princess to rescue him. And my hair like blood marked me as the one,” Willow smiled proudly.

Spike blinked, wondering if Willow was half barmy because Dru had sired her.

“I’m your special Red Princess,” she told him, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him almost sweetly.

“That you are,” Spike replied, not sure what to make of all this, but not ready to complain.

Yet.

Angel growled.

“Oh sod off.”

Just to piss off Peaches, Spike pulled Red into another kiss, plunging his tongue into her mouth and pulling her tighter against his side. He could feel her breasts pressed against his chest. She started to writhe against him, moaning and whimpering.

Suddenly Spike found himself flying through the air. He crashed into the wall of the crypt, opening his eyes to see Angel standing over him, fully vamped out. He slid into his own game face, snarling. Grabbing Angel’s ankles, he dragged the bigger vampire down, and then they rolled, trading punches.

“ _Stop_!” a feminine voice echoed off the stone.

Angel was flung away from Spike, rising until he was pressed against the ceiling. The stone above him cracked, the pressure of whatever invisible force that held him still pushing. Spike could hear one of Angel’s ribs break.

He turned his head to see that Willow was the source of the power that had ripped Angel away. Her eyes had turned a deep inky black, veins stood out in her skin, and she was in vamp face, her demon ridges making her look feline and beautiful. It was clear now that she was Drusilla’s childe.

“Bad puppy,” she said to Angel in that impossibly magnified voice. “You shouldn’t be mean to Mummy’s Spike.”

Spike smirked and got to his feet, coming up behind Willow to wrap his arms around her. He let his fingers graze along her hipbone, filled with masculine satisfaction when she sighed and shifted against him. “Beautiful,” he whispered into her ear.

She smiled a feral smile.

“While Peaches is out of the way, why don’t you tell me how you came to be here, and like this, hmm?”

Willow leaned back against his chest, her eyes fluttering closed. Spike readily took her weight, helping her to stand. That spell must be taking a lot out of her. “Mummy found me in the dark and made me shine. She was teaching me all of her magic, and how to be a good princess, but then Granddaddy came and ruined all our fun.” Willow frowned. “Bored now.”

Her eyes turned amber-green again as she released her hold on her spell, and Angel fell from the ceiling to land on the floor in a heap. He groaned, rubbing his head. “Drusilla made her promise to find you and stay with you, and she’s surprisingly adamant about following Dru’s wishes. She escaped from me five times and almost ate Cordy before I agreed to bring her to see you.”

An odd grimace twisted Spike’s lips, halfway between a frown and a smirk. The thought of Willow eating that loudmouthed brunette he’d seen around from time to time was enough to bring a smile to any bloke’s face, but the mentions of Drusilla, after everything she’d put him through, soured the humor.

“Why’d Dru want you with me, Red?” he asked Willow, doubting that Angel would know or care.

“The stars told Mummy about nasty men reaching their fingers inside you,” Willow turned in his arms to face him, tracing two fingers across his forehead.

The chip.

Well bloody hell.

Had Dru turned Willow to protect him?

He didn’t know whether he hated her or loved her for that. She’d decided he wasn’t vamp enough for her a while ago. Maybe now she thought he couldn’t even take care of himself, so she made a childe to do it for him.

On the other hand, this had to mean that some part of her still cared.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. There was no use trying to figure it out. Drusilla only ever made complete sense to Drusilla.

He kissed Willow again, considering his position. It was true that having a vamp around who could actually hunt and hurt humans would be more than helpful. And if the Slayer and her friends ever got any funny ideas about him, the thought of springing Red on them as his bodyguard was downright delicious. And she needed him. He assumed Dru’d buggered off for parts unknown after Angel caught her with Red, and she wasn’t any good for the practicalities of being a sire. And Peaches? Spike snorted. If he let Peaches step in to teach Red how to be the Big Bad, she’d spend the rest of her days helping little old ladies across the street and drinking pig blood through a sippy straw.

“How come I haven’t heard any flap about Red being missing from the Slayer? Seems like she should have been beating down the bloody door to demand I help, or turn out my pockets in case I was the one who’d snatched her.”

Angel looked decidedly shifty.

“You wanker!” Spike declared with glee. “You haven’t told them!”

Angel pulled himself to his feet once more. “I didn’t want to worry them until I knew there was something to worry about. And then after I found her… well, I didn’t want Buffy to do anything rash. I tried to tame her, to get her to accept me as her sire with Drusilla gone, and I… I had Wesley try to restore her soul. I made her send emails to Buffy saying that she was staying on in L.A. to help me with something.”

Spike looked down into Willow’s green eyes. “And yet you’re right here where you wanted to be, no soul in sight.”

Willow smiled enigmatically.

“She did something. We don’t know what. Wesley has tried to summon her soul twice, but he can’t get it to bind to her body. She keeps the soul only for as long as Wes can keep up his concentration. Then it’s gone. The last time… the last time, she asked us not to try again.”

Impressed, Spike gently stroked his – yes, _his_ – Red’s ridges, admiring the beauty of her demonic face. “Well aren’t you something special,” he murmured.

She preened under his attention. “Special enough to have a taste?” she asked, emerald eyes pleading.

Spike tilted his head and sucked in his cheeks, considering for a long moment. Then he relented, raising his wrist and laying it across Red’s lips. “Only a taste,” he reminded her as she latched on, suckling at his veins like a babe at the breast.

“What are you doing?” Angel demanded.

“What’s it look like? I’m going to make her mine, like Dru wanted.” Spike met Angel’s eyes. “Isn’t this why you brought her here?”

Grudgingly, Angel nodded. “I can’t be what she needs. There’s too much going on in L.A. for me to watch her all the time, and after what she tried to do to Cordy, I don’t trust her alone with anyone who isn’t strong enough to fight her off.”

“I was just playing,” Red protested. A spot of Spike’s blood dribbled past her lips. Her tongue shot out to catch it, and then she was drinking from him again, the steady pull and lapping of her tongue sending a flare of arousal down Spike’s spine.

Spike smirked at her. Vicious little poppet. He was already half in love with his new protégé. Dru had chosen well. But then, when it came to choosing who to turn, Dru had surprisingly good taste. After all, she’d chosen Spike.

“I couldn’t just stake her,” Angel continued lowly. “It’s Willow. And she’s one of ours.”

One of theirs. Spike snorted. “Not like you’ve ever cared about the bonds of family before.”

Angel shrugged. “Believe what you want.”

Spike busied himself with pulling his wrist away from Willow’s mouth. “That’s enough, luv. A master’s blood is heady stuff.” She protested the loss, her lips redder now than her lipstick had made them. Her eyes were already glassy.

“Spike,” she breathed his name huskily. A trickle of his blood ran down her chin. Spike licked it away, drawing a whimper from Willow. Angel groaned, like seeing them together caused him more pain than his rapidly healing broken rib.

“What are you going to tell the Slayer?” Spike asked. “Would love to see how you’re going to get out of this one. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t chain _you_ in the Watcher’s bloody bathtub this time.”

Angel blinked. “The bathtub?” He shook his head. “Never mind, there’s no time.” Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a thick envelope. “I’m going to tell Buffy the truth. But only after you take Willow and get out of Sunnydale. I don’t want Willow staked, and I don’t want Buffy to have to confront her. Not for a while anyway.” Angel held out the envelope. “I opened a bank account for the two of you. All the papers and the debit cards are in here. Get Willow out of Buffy’s reach.”

 _And Buffy out of Willow’s_ , Spike silently finished that sentence. New vamps often killed their loved ones. If Red saw the Slayer or the Watcher or the moron and decided to make them into snacks, well, Spike had seen her display of power. Even against the Slayer, Spike was willing to bet on Willow, purely because the Slayer would hesitate before dusting her best friend.

There was no hesitation in his Red Princess.

Spike eyed the proffered envelope. “And if I don’t want your money?”

“Then take it for Willow.”

Still, Spike stared.

Angel sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Look, I’ve been a bad sire. I know! I know that, okay? But… I can do this. This is the one thing I can do for you.”

For several long minutes, none of them moved. Even Willow, as irreverent as she was, knew better than to disturb the sanctity of the moment.

Spike took the envelope.

Angel sighed again, and this time it was with relief. “You know how to contact me. If you need anything, let me know. And if… if Willow gets to a point where she wants to come back, wants to see everyone again, tell me and I’ll talk to Buffy.”

Spike looked down at the little vampire tucked into his side. She’d started to giggle to herself. His blood had gone straight to her head.

What was there to keep him in Sunnydale? The Slayer? Her friends? He snorted. With Willow to help him, he wouldn’t need to rely on them for blood and money. And besides, they could always come back once Red had outgrown the reckless stupidity of the newly turned. Ah, he remembered his first nights…

“What do you say, Red? Want to come away with me?”

“Of course,” she answered in the voice of a child. “Mummy made me just for you. And she made you for me. She saw us in each other’s eyes.”

Spike’s brows shot up, but he smiled and said indulgently, “Of course she did, luv.”

**-l-**

It didn’t take much time for Spike to pack up his few belongings. He’d taken to traveling light ever since he and Dru were chased out of Prague, and all Willow had was a small bag of clothes Angel had bought for her, and a doll Drusilla had given her. Spike considered asking whether she wanted to retrieve anything from her human life, but dismissed the idea when he realized that they’d have trouble getting anyone to invite them into her parent’s house since the couple was out of town, and Willow’s college roommate was Buffy herself. It was too risky.

So they stuffed Spike’s things in the same bag as Willow’s and then they let Angel give them a lift to an all-night car rental place. Angel had gone all white knight when Spike had started giving Red a lesson in carjacking.

Looking at Willow, Spike mouthed, _Granddaddy’s no fun_.

She nodded, covering her answering grin with one dainty white hand.

Oblivious to the mockery, Angel led them into the car rental office and stayed with them as Spike filled out the rental form for a black SUV with tinted windows. Angel had provided them with fake passports and driver’s licenses to go with their new bank account. They were William and Katie Conner. Spike rolled his eyes, and wondered whether they were supposed to be siblings or married.

“Willow!” Angel said sharply, making Spike look up.

The red haired vampire immediately assumed a pose of perfect innocence. If Spike’s preternatural senses didn’t tell him better, he’d think she was still the sweet human girl she’d always been.

“What was she doing?” Spike asked as he finished the rental form and scrawled a fake signature across the bottom.

“She wasn’t moving yet, but I know her faces. She was thinking about attacking the clerk.”

“Why not let her?”

“Spike – ”

“Oh come off it. Don’t act like you think I’m going to keep her from killing once we’re out of here. I’m going to teach her to be the best killer there is, and have her bring me my dinner gift wrapped.”

Angel looked pained. “I know.”

Spike blinked. “So long as we’re clear.”

“Just… not in Sunnydale, alright? Not in Buffy’s territory. Don’t make this any harder.”

Spike immediately decided that the next time he needed revenge on Angel (he was sure there would be a next time – there always was) he would take Red on a killing spree through the hellmouth.

But not tonight.

“Fine, you poof.”

Spike got the keys to the SUV and they went out and transferred their bags into it without incident. In minutes, Willow was buckled into the front passenger seat and playing with the stereo system, her doll clutched in one hand.

“Don’t tell me where you’re going,” Angel said to Spike through the driver’s side window. “I don’t want to have to lie to them when I say I don’t know.”

“Hadn’t planned on telling you anyway.” Spike started to roll up the window. Angel grabbed the glass, looking first into Spike’s eyes, and then across him to Willow.

“Let me know when you’re safe. I’ll wait two days before I go to Buffy. That enough time?”

“Plenty,” Spike said with finality, this time managing to get the window all the way up.

He stepped on the gas, and they were on their way, making sure to hit the ‘Sunnydale’ sign on the way out of town.


	2. Gas Station Roses

Willow spent most of their first night on the road silently studying Spike. He was magnificent, and Drusilla had promised that he was all hers. Well, Drusilla had said something more along the lines of Mummy’s lonely prince needing a new playmate, a princess to keep him company forever, but in the few nights Willow had gotten to spend with her sire, she had come to speak fluent Drusilla-ese.

They were the same, Willow and Spike. In the last moments of Willow’s humanity Drusilla had told her story after story, painting a picture of the vampire that was to be Willow’s eternal companion, a watercolor that was covered over in blood. Sitting in the bower that Drusilla had made for her, a nest of silk and flower petals that Drusilla thought made a good nursery for a baby vampire, Willow learned of William. Spike, she knew. Spike had terrified her, held a broken bottle in her face, threatened her death, and wept on her shoulder.

But he had always come back for her. How many times now had she felt his fingers digging into the nape of her neck, wrenching her hair, glowing eyes boring into hers?

“It is because he knows, yet does not know. You call to him, my sweet little Red. I lost my prince the moment he first saw his princess.”

It was William who was new to Willow. Sweet William, Drusilla called him. He was shy and stuttering and so loyal and lovely, and had remained that way when first turned, until Angelus got him in his clutches. The human Willow resisted these stories, thrust them away from herself, but couldn’t quiet the sound of Drusilla’s voice, echoing down to her heart. William, Willow, Will. They were both Will. Bookish, boring, reliable Dog Geyser type people. Both strong in all the wrong ways, and weak in all the right ones.

In spite of herself, she wished she had known William before he became Spike.

And then had come the dark embrace, the sting of Drusilla’s teeth in her neck, and Willow had woken the next night in a whole new world. A world where Drusilla, her sire, was the sun and moon, and her ravings were the word of a god humans couldn’t know.

“You will go find my sweet Willy, and stay with him. Stay with your brother,” Willow’s Mummy commanded, just hours before Angel had shown up and chased her away. “You will stay and stay and you will love.”

Drusilla kissed her, and Willow kissed back, bursting with the desire to please her sire, with what might be love, but surely couldn’t be, because she didn’t have a soul. And after she had her first feeding, and her memories returned, she started to imagine her William, her Spike, her Brother in Blood, and the same feeling welled up, choking her with knotted red thread she couldn’t see.

Might as well call it love. The word fit better than any other she knew.

She glanced at him, out of the corner of her eye. He was lost in a haze of cigarette smoke, staring straight ahead at the road that stretched out before them ( _in more than one way, in a hundred thousand ways_ ). She could still taste his blood on her tongue and feel the dark glimmerings of his power in her veins. Her demon purred contentedly inside her.

They were meant to be together, and they would cut a swathe of beautifully wrought destruction across the earth that would never be forgotten. It would be such great fun.

And he needed her. She hadn’t forgotten about his chip. Without Drusilla to guide her, she needed Spike, she knew. Vampires were pack creatures, and most young vampires met an untimely end before they were undead for fifty years if they didn’t have a sire, a mother, a father, a brother, a lover to teach and protect them.

But it was nice to know that he needed her too.

Had needed her even before she was turned, if only for comfort and love spells.

“You’re being awful quiet, pet,” Spike interrupted her reverie. He rolled the driver’s side window down, letting out the halo of smoke around his head.

“Hungry,” she whispered to him, clutching her dolly to her chest.

Truth be told, she felt silly with the doll, but it was the only thing she had from Drusilla. And she thought it added to her ruse. Willow was just as intelligent and sane as her human self had been, but she had quickly realized the benefits of being thought crazy when Angel showed up and took her away from her Mummy.

He’d immediately started treating her like some broken little girl, and she had obliged by playing along.  Whatever Angel said about family, she was certain that part of what had kept her alive was that she both reminded him of her sire and seemed incapable of taking care of herself for any length of time.

And it was amazing what sorts of things people would say in front of you if they thought you wouldn’t understand.

“We’ll stop soon, luv, and get a bite to eat,” Spike promised, grinning at his pun. Willow returned his smile. She could sense the bloodlust in him, feeding into hers. Was he looking forward to drinking blood straight from the source again? Remembering his treatment at the hands of the Scoobies – at the hands of her human self, thinking she was being kind by feeding him a mug of pig’s blood – she frowned. He deserved so much better. He was so much _more_ , and she was amazed and ashamed she hadn’t been able to see it before. Hadn’t been able to see past the stark black lines humans draw between right and wrong. There was no good, and there was no evil, there was just living and dying and feeling and blood. It was all so simple now.

She would be doubly vicious, vicious enough for two, and then she would kill a bloodbag for her sweetling, and know that he was starting to love her. Soon he would be so completely wrapped up in her that he wouldn’t be able to imagine the night without her in it. She would make sure of it.

“The stars will sing of us,” she told him. She didn’t intend to fool Spike forever, but it was entertaining to see how long it would take him to figure out she was just as sane as he was.

“That they will, Red. That they will.”

There was silence for a few minutes, just the radio crackling in the background, and then Spike looked at her, his cigarette dangling between his lips. “What’s her name?” He gestured at Willow’s doll.

Willow looked down and the porcelain poppet in her hands. The doll had dark hair like Drusilla, and a frilly green dress. Willow hadn’t named the doll anything. She didn’t care about it beyond it being a token of her sire’s regard.

“Don’t know,” she answered truthfully, holding the doll up and running her fingers through its hair.

“Got to have a name,” Spike told her, two fingers tipped with chipped black nail polish coming up to pluck his cigarette from his lips before he blew out a stream of smoke. “Dru’d want you to name her.”

Taking that to heart, Willow returned to her study of the doll’s face.

“Rose,” she said at last.

“S’good name,” Spike agreed.

**-l-**

They stopped at a truck stop a few hours before dawn. Spike went in first to scope the place out, coming out with a new carton of cigarettes and filling up the tank of the SUV. He didn’t know how to turn the gas pumps on and off, so it was only practical to buy the gas first.

And part of him hoped that Angel would be tracking where William and Katie Conner were using their debit cards, and connect their gas purchase to the massacre that was about to occur.

“There’s four men inside,” he told Red. “Best you leave Rose in the car. Now, I need you to pay attention, pet,” he looked at her seriously.

“I’m listening, my Spike,” she promised him with a sweet smile.

“When you’re ready to attack, make sure you get the cashier first. He might have a gun behind the counter. A gun won’t kill you, pet, but it’ll hurt if you’re shot, and ruin your pretty clothes.”

Dru had always been more worried about getting her clothes dirty than getting hurt.

“Wouldn’t want that,” Red purred to him, standing up and wrapping her arms around his neck. If he was human, he was sure his heart would be pounding. It was too long since he’d had the attention of a vampiress of Red’s caliber. She was still a fledge, true enough, but Spike could see the potential there. She’d rise to the level of master all too soon.

He only hoped she’d still want him when she did. No, he’d _make sure_ she still wanted him. He was done being left for greener pastures and fiercer demons, and he sure as hell wasn’t going back to drinking bagged blood after having a meal ticket like Red.

He resolved to make his little princess crave his presence, just as Dru had always yearned for Angelus.

“I’ll hold the doors closed so they can’t run from you,” he told Red just before she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his in a kiss.

He couldn’t hurt humans directly, but the chip couldn’t do a damn thing to keep him from trapping them with Red.

“Back in a minute, baby,” she told him. He watched her saunter through the doors of the truck stop. He was glad they were glass. He’d be able to see the slaughter.

He followed her at a discreet distance, waiting until he heard the first scream to rush forward and grab the handles of the doors.

Red was a clumsy hunter, but she made up for her lack of skill with sheer enthusiasm. Spike grinned to himself as he watched her jump up onto the counter and take the cashier down. One of the truck drivers who had been eating in the little restaurant area ran for the doors, begging for Spike to let him out once he realized the blond vampire was holding them firmly shut.

Spike closed his eyes and breathed deep, reveling in the scent of fear and the feel of having this man’s life in his hands. If he opened the door, he could let the man go. If he kept it closed, this truck stop would be the sod’s tomb.

Spike opened his eyes just in time to see blood spray the glass of the doors. Red had caught up with the truck driver, and plunged her little hand through the man’s torso from behind, ripping out his heart. The bodies of the others were slumped throughout the truck stop floor.

Spike opened the doors, stepping to one side as the now heartless man fell. He looked so surprised, little grunting noises still coming from his lips.

Red held the heart out to Spike. “A gift for Big Brother,” she grinned, dots of blood making macabre freckles on her face.

“Thank you, luv,” he told her, shifting into game face. He could barely restrain himself. Hands shaking, he bit into the heart and sucked, nearly creaming himself when the blood hit his tongue. Still warm, and edged with fear and despair. It had been so long, he’d almost forgotten how good it was.

He moaned, and Red giggled, rubbing her hand over the obvious bulge in his pants, leaving a streak of blood. Moaning again, Spike bucked against her hand.

She blew him a kiss and dragged one of the other corpses over for him, then pounced on the remaining two herself. She was a messy eater, just as messy as she was a killer, but she just needed to be trained up a bit. Once they were settled, Spike would teach her better, more elegant methods. But for now she was a wild thing, her bestial nature beautiful in its own way.

**-l-**

Willow watched her Spike through half lidded eyes, happy with herself for so obviously pleasing him. Her demon pushed her to assert her own power and please the older vampires in her family, and in this act she had done both.

Being with Spike was so much better than being with Angel, with his simpering little soul and all his pet humans. She wanted so to give her grandsire the respect he deserved, but found she could only manage a sort of lukewarm tolerance and pity. Saddled with a soul as he was, always flopping about as he worried about the artificial demarcations between good and bad, he might as well have had his fangs yanked out. He was dead, but he had stopped living. Pathetic little puppy.

But Spike, _oh_ Spike. Even with the chip in his head, his capacity for glorious violence was undiminished. Wistfully, Willow wished she had been born in an earlier time, a time when they could have roamed through the land and killed whole villages without repercussion. They would have to be much more careful in the age of technology, where they could be tracked through trace evidence and blood spatter, and humans had weapons powerful enough to hurt.

That thought in mind, Willow dropped the bloodbag she’d been feeding from, and went behind the counter. First she destroyed the closed circuit security feeds, making sure to damage the monitors and digital recorder beyond playability. The next thing she crushed was the credit card machine, knowing Spike had used their debit cards to pay for the gas. When Spike looked at her, one brow raised, she giggled, clapped her hands, and made a show of breaking more things. The seemingly random destruction would throw off the police, and make Spike persist in thinking she was as crazy as Drusilla.

Besides, it was fun.

Leaving the counter area, she continued to a shelf of cheap knickknacks. One by one, she tipped a row of snow globes onto the floor, cackling as they shattered, and then walking over the glass to revel in the sound of it crunching under her boots. Soon she was stepping in a deliberate rhythm, humming one of the Sex Pistols songs Spike kept playing on the radio. Spike left her to it, hopping over the counter to take all the cartons of the cigarettes he liked, and stealing the money out of the cash register.

“See anything you want to keep, pet?” he called to her, just before she shoved an entire shelf over. When the sound of groaning metal and breaking glass had faded, he continued, “Don’t break the one with the booze on it.”

She nodded her understanding, and started wandering the aisles to see if anything caught her eye. Spotting a teddy bear wearing a little commemorative shirt, Willow snatched it up, pulling the shirt off the bear. A bit of whimsy made her smile as she contemplated putting the shirt on her doll, Rose. Maybe she’d start a collection – a new piece of clothing for Rose in every town where they stopped to kill. She thought Drusilla would approve.

“You need to get cleaned up, luv.” Spike was suddenly behind her, moving so quietly that even her vampire hearing had not warned her of his approach. Perhaps in another twenty years, she would be as graceful. “Go find the loo and wash the blood off. I’ll bring you some clothes from the car.”

Willow nodded to him. Though she liked the feel of the blood under her nails and dotted on her skin, it wasn’t practical to leave it there, and she didn’t want to get it all over the inside of the SUV. That would raise too many questions.

The truck stop bathroom was dirty enough to make Willow glad that vampires were immune to human diseases. The stale scent of urine overpowered by bleach assaulted her delicate nose. Wrinkling the appendage, she quickly stripped down to her skin, wetting her clothes and using them to scrub at the blood on her hands and face. She wanted out of the bathroom as soon as possible.

Spike found her when she was about halfway done, a stack of clothes in his hands. He stood in the doorway, devouring her with his eyes. Willow turned and posed for him.

“Am I pretty?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Gorgeous,” he returned, desire filling his words with a low growl. Willow could smell the lust between them, thick in the air.

And then Willow no longer cared about the stink of the bathroom or the dirt of the floor. Spike’s presence was overpowering, all around her, filling her up. He bent her over the sinks, her change of clothes sprawled across the counter and Spike’s duster hanging down around the both of them as he thrust into her and she bucked her hips back to meet his.

“Who is your princess?” she demanded, panting, though she no longer needed to breathe.

“You are, Red,” he promised her.

Then he shifted into game face, and Willow felt his teeth at her neck. Turning in his arms, Willow let her own demon come to the fore and latched onto Spike’s neck in turn. They stood there for what seemed an eternity, each giving and taking blood from the other while they rocked together, an act symbolic of the nature of their bond.

It was more than sex and blood. It was a Christening, a forging of eternity. Spike called her Red, and she took the name as her own, folding Willow up and putting her away. Willow was a human, soft and fuzzy.

Red was Spike’s princess, and more. Red was Spike’s sister and mate.

_William, Willow, Will._

_Red Spikes of Blood._

Spike might not believe yet, but Red knew that their sire, their Blood Mother saw the twists of fate. Drusilla had made Red to be with Spike, and Red knew it would be forever. They would fuck, and plunder, and kill, and one day Drusilla would come back for both of them, and they would all be a family again.

But she figured she’d have Spike all to herself for at least a century or so first.

**-l-**

Angel went to Giles’ apartment two days after he watched his childer drive off into the night. Part of him wished he was with them. A master without his family wasn’t really a master. But he knew he couldn’t. He was needed in L.A., and his soul, his conscience wouldn’t allow him to look the other way when Spike and Willow killed. Not if he was witnessing it firsthand. He felt guilty enough knowing he’d set them loose on the world without even trying to stop them. But as dark and deadly as they were, they were a reflection of him, his children. He wouldn’t let them be staked. He _yearned_.

He wasn’t sure if that feeling came from his demon or his soul.

Buffy opened the door, her mouth dropping open to see him standing there. “Angel? What are you doing here? Is Willow with you?”

“No,” he said slowly, taking in every inch of Buffy’s face, memorizing it in case she refused to see him again after he told her everything. “Willow’s not in Sunnydale.”

It wasn’t quite a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

“It’ll be better if I can tell everyone at once.”

Buffy stepped back from the door. “Come in, Angel.”

**-l-**

When it was all said and done, Buffy couldn’t look at him. Giles paced back and forth, alternating looking through his books with polishing his glasses. Xander was furious, and blamed Angel, but then Xander had always disliked Angel and this did nothing to lessen the rift.

Besides, Angel had made Drusilla into what she was. Ultimately, Willow’s death _was_ his fault.

Anya thought Angel had done the thing that made the most sense, but she quickly fell silent when all of the humans in the room turned on her.

“How could you?” Buffy said, something broken in her gaze.

“Please, Buffy. Try to understand. I couldn’t just slaughter them. And I couldn’t force you to do it. It would be too cruel.”

“No, I mean how could you let Drusilla get to Willow in the first place?!”

Angel didn’t know what to say. There was nothing _to_ say.

“Please just go. I can’t be near you right now.”

He went to the door without complaint, without even a backward glance. This could be good, he decided as he went out into the night and climbed into his car. Maybe things would be easier, the temptation to come to Sunnydale just to catch a glimpse of Buffy less intense if he knew she didn’t want him.

That was what he told himself.


	3. Punk Rock Candy Mountain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics in this chapter are from the song “Punk Rock Candy Mountain” by the Bone Fags.

Spike turned in the rental SUV just before they left California. On the same night, he found a bank teller’s window that was open after sundown and withdrew all of the money from William and Katie Conner’s account. He’d open a new account once they were settled. Or maybe he’d just stuff it all under the mattress…

He’d decided he didn’t want to make it too easy for Peaches to find them. Sure, nothing would stop his sire if Angel really put his mind to it, but there was no need to leave the bank account open as a neon sign pointing the way.

That done, they went about getting themselves a new set of wheels. Red came in handy for that. Once Spike spotted a car he liked – a perfectly restored vintage Ford Mustang, black with a red stripe – he sent Red over to lurk around until the owner showed up. When the middle-aged man arrived, his comb-over failing to hide a bald spot, Red stepped out of the shadows, a tearful look on her face. In minutes she had the old sod wrapped around her finger and ushering her into the car.

Once they’d driven off, Spike crossed the street and waited where the car had been parked, lighting up a smoke. One and a half fags later, the Mustang came back around, shuddering and starting. It seemed that Spike’s princess was a little too nutters to drive a stick shift.

Spike made short work of stowing their belongings in the back seat, and then he made Red shove over so that he could drive.

“I did just what you said, my Spike. I broke his neck so that his blood wouldn’t make pretty pictures all over me.”

“Did you put him in the boot?”

Red nodded.

“We’ll snack on him in a bit, before the blood gets too cold.” Spike caressed her cheek, leaning over to plant a kiss on her lips. “You’ve done well, pet.”

She leaned into his touch, beaming at him.

**-l-**

Red watched Spike drive for a while, taking note of when he shifted gears and when he used the clutch. The human Willow had never learned to drive stick, and so the vampire didn’t know either. She paid close attention now, not wanting to look foolish in front of her Dark Prince again.

Eventually, she got bored. She wanted to ask Spike so many things, but she wasn’t yet ready to let him know that her crazy act was just that – an act. So she settled for occupying herself with changing Rose’s clothes and combing through the doll’s hair with her fingers. When that stopped being amusing, she fiddled with the radio stations until Spike snapped at her and turned the station to punk rock. Finally she was reduced to pressing her face against the glass of the window, staring out at the passing scenery.

“Bored now,” she whined.

“We’ll stop soon, kitten,” Spike promised.

“Bored _now_ ,” Red repeated, dropping into game face. Her demon had little tolerance for being made to wait, and she was irritated and hungry enough not to even attempt to control it.

Spike grinned at her, and suddenly the car was filled with the smell of desire. He liked the look of her demon. He enjoyed her defiance.

Without replying to her again, Spike pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the road. Red clapped her hands, sensing both lust and violence within him. Seconds later and they were out of the car, Spike roughly pulling Red along by the hand.

She reveled in the feel of his fingertips digging into her wrist, in the bruises that he would leave. She pushed, and Spike pushed back. This was what she wanted, what she craved.

This was what Angel hadn’t been able to give her.

Spike shoved her down, one large hand grasping her throat. If she needed to breathe, she’d be choking. He slipped into game face, and Red raised her hands to caress his ridges, his beauty making her thighs wet. She put up a token resistance, and then they were rolling along the ground in a haze of intermingled pleasure and pain. It was Red’s punishment, but also her reward. In one tangle of blood and sex, Spike was asserting himself as her elder, her sire for all intents and purposes.

But her Brother in Blood, he who shared a maker with her, was giving her a distraction, alleviating her boredom as he played her body like a musician, eliciting waves of pleasure one moment, and curling her toes with pain the next.

Perhaps the intricacies of the act and all its underlying meaning would confuse and horrify her human self. But to the Vampiress Red, it was perfectly simple.

**-l-**

They made their way leisurely down the west coast, heading south, to the border. Spike was thinking they’d hole up in the dark jungles of South America, and he’d teach his girl everything she needed to know about being the Big Bad. He wanted out of the United States for a while. All it had done recently was kick his ass. The Slayer, the Initiative, the bloody Prince of Poofs – they could all have their precious United States.

He’d briefly considered Europe, showing Red around his old stomping grounds, but ultimately decided against it. Europe was the seat of the Watcher’s Council. One day Red would be able to walk fearlessly through the front door of their headquarters and all the stuffed shirts would piss themselves in fear, of that he had no doubt, but for now she was newly turned and believed too much in her own immortality. Spike would keep her safe.

And besides, she’d nattered on one night about wishing they could go back in time to the years when he’d been part of the Scourge of Europe. Spike didn’t quite have the mojo for time travel, but he could do the next best thing: Take Red to a South American country where the jungle was filled with beasts and people still believed in magic.

They began each night with a hunt, Red killing Spike’s Happy Meals for him so that he could drain them without the chip firing. She was still messy, though getting better with practice. But Spike hadn’t taken time to teach her much yet. That could wait until they’d found themselves a more permanent lair. Instead, he carefully avoided choosing targets that might be able to put up too much of a fight. He didn’t want Red dusted, and the chip would keep him from coming to her rescue.

They’d spend the rest of the night driving, stopping only when the internal sense that warned them of the impending sunrise drove them to take cover in a cheap motel or abandoned factory. Spike made a mental note that Red didn’t like the abandoned places. She preferred living amongst humans. It gave her a kick to smile and chat to them, knowing that they never suspected she was the thing that went bump in the night.

She might be as loony as Dru, but there was a twist to her demon that smacked of Angelus. If the poof didn’t have his little soul problem, Spike was sure that Red would be his favorite grandchilde.

Hell, soul or no soul, she probably still was his favorite grandchilde.

“What’s making puppy growl?” Red inquired from the passenger seat. She was playing with Rose. She’d taken a scarf from the woman they had drained for dinner and was busy fashioning it into a dress for the doll.

Spike blinked, having not realized he was growling. But there it was. Thoughts of Angelus loving Red, taking Spike’s princess from him just like the ponce had taken Dru… It was enough to make him grind his fangs together.

“Not a puppy, pet,” he corrected Red, easily sidestepping her question.

“If you were my puppy, I could make you bark,” she teased, a little white hand coming to rest on his thigh.

Spike smirked at her, quirking one brow in invitation.

She returned his expression with a wicked grin of her own, her eyes flashing amber. Turning, she gently placed Rose in the backseat, and then she leaned down, burying her face in Spike’s lap. He groaned at the feel of her tongue and teeth, leaning back and turning up the radio.

_In the Punk Rock Candy Mountains you can never break your legs._

_And for the price of a forty ounce you can buy yourself a keg._

_Cause stores are made for you to loot and ya never gotta pay._

_Oh I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow_

_Just the kind that you put up your nose_

_In the Punk Rock Candy Mountains._

 

Cruising down the highway flush with fresh blood, a smoke in hand, and a beautiful woman sucking him off… This was the bloody unlife.

**-l-**

They were in an internet café, a few days from crossing the border into Mexico. Spike was browsing through the coeds, trying to decide who to seduce back to their motel room. A group of college girls was standing around him, all drawn to the handsome bad boy in the leather jacket who could talk to them about poetry.

Red’s gaze darted to a computer, and then to Spike. He looked busy enough. He probably wouldn’t notice. It had been weeks since Red had been able to use a computer, and she found that she missed it. And now that she wasn’t held back by her human self’s goody two shoes nature, she could use her skills much more lucratively.

She’d just finished stealing money from the offshore accounts of various rich jerk faces, just for shits and giggles, when she felt Spike’s eyes on her. Immediately, she clapped her hands, spouting some nonsense about the magic box making pretty pictures.

Spike’s eyes narrowed.

Through their bond, Red felt a simple command laden with anger that sent chills down her spine. _Come with me, sister._

Then he was out the door, one of the coeds on his arm.

Red waited ten minutes, and followed.

**-l-**

Once they’d drained the girl and dumped her in an alley (Red keeping the girl’s pearl bracelet as a necklace for Rose), they returned to their room. Spike immediately flung himself onto the bed, though he didn’t start flipping through the television channels as usual. Instead, he stared at Red.

She crawled onto the bed after him, tucking herself into his side and laying her head on his chest. He put his arms around her, and she felt safe, a ball of tension she had been unaware of loosening in her gut. Her demon fidgeted within her. Spike was unhappy, and when Spike was unhappy, so was she.

“You’re not half as crazy as you pretend, are you?”

Red turned her head to look up at him, lips stretching into a faint smile. “Half as crazy, twice as twisted.”

Spike closed his eyes, and Red frowned to herself. Was that … hurt? Did she see betrayal in his face?

“Why?” he asked her, and nothing else.

“Because it was fun,” she answered honestly.

“Fun?!” Spike exploded, seemingly flying from the bed. Red was knocked back by the force of his movement. She spun in the air, trying to land on her feet, but instead slammed into the rickety table in the breakfast nook and stumbled to her knees.

She got up and dusted herself off, the broken ends of the splintered wooden table making her nervous. Her Dark Prince wouldn’t stake her, would he? He needed her, if for nothing else than to kill his dinner for him. Staking her would make Mummy mad.

Spike was yelling.

“If this is some bloody joke you and Peaches have cooked up,” he sputtered, in full vamp face. “Get me out here having the best time I’ve had since the soddin’ chip, only so you can take it away and point and laugh – ”

Understanding dawned on Red. She felt her heart stop, and wondered how that could be, since it didn’t beat.

Oh, her poor, broken prince. He’d been so cruelly used by the world. She longed to hold him in her arms, to suckle and coddle and whisper that they were together now, born in blood, and soon the only cruelty he would know would be that which they inflicted. The vampiric bonds of family sang a siren song, and maybe a bit of the human she had been was there too, aching to comfort.

She launched herself at Spike, trying to pull him into a kiss, only to have him backhand her, sending her crashing to the ground. Her demon rose, ridges forming on her forehead as she looked up at him, both frightened and aroused by the way he loomed over her and the steely set to his jaw. He snarled at her, pinning her chest to the floor with a knee on each shoulder, and she whimpered, writhing beneath him. He was stronger than her, and a much better fighter. There was no way she could escape him.

But then, she really didn’t want to.

He was threatening her with exquisite torture, with tying her up, alone, to meet daylight. His deep voice was filled with the hard edge of a growl, his eyes glowing yellow, his fangs protruding over his lips. It would have been beyond sexy if she hadn’t sensed the real despair beneath his rage.

“No one else knows,” she squeaked once she could drag in enough air to make her voice box work. She may not need to breathe, but no air meant no speaking.

Spike paused, giving her a calculated look.

“Explain.”

She did. She told him how she had fooled Angel, assuming a Drusilla-like persona as a matter of survival. How she had kept it up because it made Angel’s lackeys underestimate her. The secrets that had been spoken in front of her, simply because all assumed she wouldn’t be able to repeat them with coherency. And she told him that she had not planned to fool him forever, and now she didn’t even know why she had done it at all.

Spike got up and started pacing.

Red watched him warily, her eyes tracking his every movement. She chose to stay on the floor, in a clear show of submission.

Going to the dresser, Spike pulled a cigarette out of a half empty pack and lit it up, never mind the ‘No Smoking’ sign hanging on the wall behind him. But hey, they were evil demons. Smoking in Non-Smoking rooms was a given.

“What the hell are you doing with me then, Red?”

“What?” she asked, sliding back into her human visage.

Spike clutched at his head. “If you were a nutter, then yeah, I can see why you’d come with me. Need someone to look after you and ol’ Spike has got plenty of experience, hasn’t he?” He let out a strangled laugh. “But if you’re not, and I have this thing in my head, can’t even catch my own bloody dinner,” Spike continued, working himself into a froth. “Is it pity, or curiosity, why would you – ”

_It’s me, isn’t it? I’m not really the kind of girl vampires bite._

_Willow, William, Will._

“Because you’re my brother and I love you,” Red interrupted Spike’s tirade, getting to her feet. Approaching him cautiously, she paused, and then wrapped her arms around his waist when it didn’t seem like he was going to throw her across the room again.

Spike stood dead still. “Real vampires don’t love.”

“You do,” Red countered, running her tongue along Spike’s neck to keep him from chiming in that he wasn’t a real vampire. She shuddered in anticipation of drinking from him, tasting that heady elixir that was his centuries old blood. “I do. We may not love wisely, but we can love well.”

“You sound like Dru.” Spike’s face relaxed, his demonic ridges fading away.

Poor baby. He was afraid. Afraid of her leaving him. Knowing that she meant so much sent a coil of smug contentedness through her undead heart.

She shook her head. “We are everything we were when we were human, but _more_ ,” Red told her Dark Prince, feeling down to her demon that what she said was true. And it was. They were the distilled essence of what had been – what was left when all the namby pamby softness of moderation and conscience had been burned away. “Willow was smart. I am cunning. William was a man of love, and Spike is a vampire of all consuming passion.”

She kissed him, and he returned the embrace, his fingers winding into her bright red hair.

“How do you know about William?” he murmured in her ear, some of his rage returning. She hummed at the feel of his nails slicing tiny cuts into her scalp.

“Mummy told me. How many times do I have to tell you we were made for each other?” she whispered against his lips.

They made love throughout the night and well into the day, gentler with each other than they had ever been before. They weren’t Red and Spike so much as they were William and Willow, the remnants of their despised human selves somehow a balm to each other. William seemed like a man at sea, desperately clutching at Willow as if she were the only thing keeping him from drowning. He still didn’t believe her. William couldn’t bear to believe, and then find out it was a lie.

But Willow didn’t mind. She had an eternity to prove herself to him.

And Red liked being the focus of Spike’s fear.

**-l-**

The night they reached Mexico, Spike stopped just before the border and found a payphone. Peaches had said to call when they were safe. Spike had a… complicated relationship with his grandsire, but he’d let the poof know they’d got out of the country, if only to keep himself from a dull lecture the next time he crossed paths with the git.

And he wanted to listen to him speak to Red. He wanted to look her in the face to see if she was lying to him.

After Dru leaving him, first for Angelus, and then for other demons, he couldn’t find it within himself to accept that Red wanted to be with him. It was just asking for trouble. Beyond stupid to believe that she’d willingly travel with a neutered vampire, master or not. She thought Angel was a ponce with his soulful reluctance to kill. She’d said as much. Why didn’t Spike’s chip make him just as pathetic?

“Angel Investigations,” the cheerleader’s voice came over the phone.

“Put the poof on,” Spike commanded.

“…Spike?”

The chit sounded scared. That put Spike in a marginally better mood.

There was a screech that hurt Spike’s ears, and then a long pause. Angel said, “Spike?”

“We’re about to leave the country.”

A sigh of relief. “Good. Good.”

Neither of them knew what else to say. Static buzzed over the line. Then, casually, Spike offered Angel the chance to speak with Red.

“Yes. I’d like that.”

“C’mere, poodle,” Spike motioned Red over. She rolled her eyes at him, but she came, her doll tucked into the crook of her arm. He’d expected her to stop carting the thing around once she’d admitted she wasn’t really crazy, but to his surprise she was actually attached to it. And she kept up the barmy talk when they were anywhere another demon might see them.

“Might come in handy one day. Give us an edge we need,” she’d said when he questioned her about it.

He hadn’t been able to argue.

But still, his suspicions lingered.

He handed Red the phone, watching her face as she put it to her ear. She kept her eyes locked with his.

“Granddaddy,” she said in a tone that screamed of boredom.

“Willow,” Spike could hear Angel return. He chatted at her for a minute, asking how she was, asking where she was, as if she might forget herself and tell him. On and on the poof went, with little halting pauses between topics as he waited for Red to reply to him. She never did, until finally, a twinkle of mischief in her eye, she said, “Hanging up now,” in that same bored tone.

And then she did just that.

Spike sucked at his cheeks, feeling uncertain and hating it. He was the Big Bad – he shouldn’t be reduced to this by anyone, not his sire, not his sister.

Not the bloody Initiative.

Red took a step closer, raising her hand to twine black painted nails in his hair. She’d gotten into his bottle of polish during the day. He’d woken to find her touching up the enamel on his nails, her own already painted.

She pulled his head down, and he let her, closing his eyes as he buried his face in her neck. He inhaled, taking in her scent. She smelled like leather, cigarette smoke, vanilla, and _him_. It calmed him, soothing the fears he wouldn’t admit to out loud.

“Ready to go, my prince?” Red asked him softly.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against his chest. A human would have been crushed, suffocated in his embrace.

“Let’s go, princess,” he said at last.


	4. Bad Religion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics in this chapter are from “Punk Rock Song” by Bad Religion.

Buffy sat in the Magic Box, staring blankly at a book. It was October. It would be Halloween soon.

And almost three months since Willow had headed out of town with Spike. Three months since the candlelight vigil that Willow’s own parents hadn’t even attended. Three months since the world had stopped making sense.

Three months of mourning.

Willow’s side of the dorm room looked the same as it did the night she left for L.A. Buffy had the strangest feeling that if she boxed up any of Willow’s things, she really would be gone forever. A part of her she never told anyone about was glad that Wills was a vampire, because it meant that it was possible that she could come back, and she would babble, and they’d laugh, and go to the Bronze, and it would be just like before, except better, because now Willow would be able to defend herself when baddies came calling.

Buffy shook her head. She had to stop thinking of Willow as well… Willow. She knew that Wills wasn’t human anymore. She wasn’t like Angel. She was a vampire without a soul. But it was hard to accept, having not seen it for herself. Maybe if she could just see that Willow was no longer Willow, maybe if Wills came back and she was all leather and skanky and kind of gay like the vamp Willow from the other world, Buffy’d stop missing her so much…

But if she ever came face to face with Willow, wouldn’t she have to stake her? Wasn’t that the whole reason Angel had sent Willow off with Spike – to spare all of them the pain of having to kill the thing that wore Willow’s face?

She could ask Riley about chipping her… but then what? Keep Willow as a pet vampire forever? And did she really want to get all best pals-y with the Initiative? The whole operation was starting to give her the wiggins.

Sighing, Buffy gave up the pretense of researching and pulled out her phone, checking for missed calls. Angel had promised to tell her if Willow called him. No matter how stupid it was, Buffy had hoped that maybe Wills would call and they could meet on Halloween, since that was supposed to be some sort of evil day off or something. So. Evil takes a day off, Slayer takes a day off, they meet, Buffy gets closure, nobody dies. Simple, right?

Refusing to stop and think, Buffy dialed Angel’s number.

“Angel Investigations,” Cordelia’s voice came over the phone.

“Cordy. Hi,” Buffy responded, a little uncomfortable.

“No, Buffy, Spike and Willow still haven’t called, but I’ll get Angel anyway since you’ll insist on talking to him.” Cordy didn’t pull the phone far enough away from her mouth for Buffy to miss her huff of annoyance and muttered, “Pathetic, much?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Buffy,” Angel’s voice came over the phone. Buffy could just imagine him, all tall and dark and broody and – _No_ , she chided herself. _Don’t go there._

“Have you heard – ”

“No. Not since Spike called just before they left the country.”

“And you don’t know where they are?”

A pause, as if Angel was considering not telling her something. A stab of anger made her bite her lip. But before she could work herself up enough to say something cutting that, well, she wasn’t sure what it would have been but it would have been very… cutty, Angel said, “All I know is they’re somewhere in Brazil.”

“Brazil? Oh… Oh,” Buffy repeated herself, suddenly uncertain as to why she had needed to know so badly.

Looked like Wills showing up for Halloween was even more unlikely now.

“Thanks, Angel,” Buffy said hollowly.

“Always, Buffy.”

They hung up.

**-l-**

_Have you been to the desert?_

_Have you walked with the dead?_

_There's a hundred thousand children being killed for their bread._

_And the figures don't lie they speak of human disease._

_But we do what we want and we think what we please._

 

Music blared from the stereo system in the airy living room of Spike and Red’s villa. Spike grinned to himself as he recognized the punk rock song. Red had been saying lately that it was impossible to live (or unlive, as the case may be) with him without developing a taste for the genre.

Spike stood at the end of the hallway, watching as Red danced naked through their lounge. The sun had just gone down and they both slept in the nude. With a sway of his hips, he went to join his princess, one hand on her hipbone and another sliding up her body to cup her breast. She turned her back to him, sensually moving against him in time with the music, her red hair contrasted beautifully with her white skin. The moonlight streaming in through the large windows played over them both, making them look every bit the supernatural creatures that they were.

They’d spent the last few months roaming through the rural areas of South America, inspiring nightmares and gorging themselves on blood. Unsurprisingly, Spike’s Red Princess was a quick learner. She absorbed all he had to teach about controlling the demon, hunting, killing, clinging to the shadows, and tracking by scent. She was still more of a scrapper than a real fighter, but she was getting there. She’d never be strong enough to fight fair against another demon (or a Slayer for that matter), but that was fine seeing as she had her magic to even things out.

Not being into the mumbo jumbo himself, Spike had tracked down a coven of dark witches in Argentina and had them tutor Red in exchange for not being tortured to death. They’d done such a good job that Spike had even kept his word, he and Red moving on without eating any of the chits. Red had pointed out that the coven would be a good ally to have. After all, you never knew when an extra witch would come in handy, and it was best not to cross those who had the power to curse you.

She had shuddered, and Spike knew it was because she was imagining life with a soul.

Then had begun their tour of the smaller towns, a meandering path that led them towards Brazil. Spike had resisted Brazil at first, filled as it was with bad memories, but he’d always been bad at denying things to women (he’d even given in to Harm, a time or two), and so he’d eventually resigned himself to covering over the old memories with new. As they traveled up the road, a row of corpses in their wake, Red had started to make something of a name for herself, filling Spike with pride in his little sister. They called her _Senhora Sagramento_ in Portuguese; _La Se_ _ñora Sangundo_ in Spanish.

The Bleeding Lady.

He’d been right, thinking there was something of Angelus in her. She lived for the complex game, keeping all the mortals guessing. Always thinking away, that was his Red.

She’d developed the habit of rescuing children from abusive parents, letting the brats live while she stole into their houses and snatched the adults. Sometimes she tortured them while Spike watched, inflicting every pain upon them that had been visited on the child. Other times she killed them quickly, lovingly presenting Spike with a corpse to drain. Still others she used in arcane experiments, applying her logical mind to crafting new potions and spells.

Always she left a little poppet at the houses she visited, a doll made of straw or cloth, the hair dyed red with the blood of her victims.

Many of the children built shrines to her, thinking she was an avenging angel. When Christmas came, street vendors started selling cheap tin pendants engraved with a doll-like woman, charms meant to invoke the protection of _Santa Senhora Sagramento_. Amused, Red refrained from hurting anyone wearing one of the charms, and occasionally would save them from other demons.

Of course, if ever she found a perpetrator of the crimes _Senhora Sagramento_ was meant to punish daring to wear one of the pendants, she tore the sod limb from limb and left the pieces on the steps of the nearest cathedral.

“Just think how confused the goody goods will be,” she’d crow at Spike, eyes sparking. “I’m saving the widdle children, but oh, _oh_ the way I’m doing it.”

And then he’d forget what he was doing or what he was going to say next, because the sight of her with blood on her lips and darkness in her eyes would be too much for him and he’d have to bury his fangs in her neck and his prick in her thighs, his craving for her stronger than the call of blood.

Sometimes he thought that her saving the kids wasn’t just some big mindfuck for the Watcher’s Council. There were pieces of Willow in there, pieces of the human Willow who needed to help, to be a savior. But Spike never said anything. After all, Red never made a fuss when she caught him reading Shakespeare and she smiled when he picked flowers for her. He knew there was more than a little William left in him.

But for whatever reason – maybe because he finally had a woman who was solely devoted to him, who understood him, or maybe because he’d just had enough time to step out of Angelus’ shadow – he didn’t mind so much anymore.

“Want to go for a swim?” Red purred into his ear, rousing Spike from his thoughts. Their swimming pool glowed softly just beyond their patio doors, the night lighting making the water seem ethereal and otherworldly.

“You go on, luv. I’m just going to have a smoke first.”

Red nodded and sashayed out the patio door, leaving it open behind her. Spike went to get his fags and his lighter, and then he padded after her, the white tile of the villa floor giving away to the hard-fired terracotta flooring of the patio. Spike watched Red slip into the pool, remembering fondly the night they had filled it with blood.

Been a pain to get it clean again. They’d wound up making minions just for the task, and dusting them afterwards. Red didn’t like having minions underfoot, and Spike… Spike was a sucker for a well-executed pout.

That was how they’d ended up owning this villa, after all. When Red had got a hankering for civilization again, they’d started drifting toward cities, looking for a place to call theirs. Spike had had his eyes out for an abandoned warehouse or something along those lines, but Red had wanted more. She needed running water, and the internet.

Spike had to admit, he didn’t mind their satellite package, or having one of those DVR show recorder things. Red had set the box so that he never missed _Passions_ , and this way he could fast forward through the commercials.

They’d eventually settled in the city ofFortaleza. There was a pretty good nightlife for demons, a big enough population that it took a while for the humans to notice someone had gone missing, and Red could sit in on night classes at _A Universidade Federal do Cear_ _á_. After she’d slaked the blood thirst of the newly turned, her old thirst for learning had reasserted itself. Her Portuguese wasn’t good enough for her to be getting much out of it yet, but Spike knew that she’d be speaking the language like a native and probably teaching a class or two in no time.

Their villa was twenty minutes outside of the city, a rambling building of brown stucco and red-orange tile that was right on the beach, bought with funds Red stole over the computer. Compared to most vampiric lairs, it was a palace of light. But that was alright: they’d invested in some heavy curtains, and Red somehow seemed to belong here, an unliving contradiction.

How one being could be at once so bright and vibrant and so full of darkness, Spike didn’t know, but he was willing to spend the rest of eternity finding out.

It was a testament to the happiness he felt when he was with his Red Princess that his poetic thoughts didn’t make him frown.

His cig finished, Spike dropped the butt in the ashtray sitting on the patio table, and then took a running jump into the pool, resulting in a mighty splash. Red laughed at him, coming over to run her tongue along his neck before wrinkling her nose at the taste of chlorine.

“Want me to drive you to class tonight, petal?”

“What will you do while you wait?”

Spike kissed her. “I’ll pop in _Dona Santa_ and see if I can find us a bloke to munch on later.”

Red giggled, winding her arms around Spike’s neck and her legs around his waist. He moved them to the shallow end of the pool so that he’d be able to stand up with both of their heads above the water.

“If you’re going to _Dona Santa_ , you should wear your leather pants. You always get more puppies with your leather pants.”

Spike had to laugh too.

“Right, luv. I’ll wear the leather pants, and I’ll have a puppy for you to play with when I come get you.”

 

**-l-**

 

 _Dona Santa_ was a gay club filled with pulsing music, flashing lights, and horny men of all ages. Spike went in wearing a red silk shirt unbuttoned enough to show off the muscles of his chest, and tight leather pants, the ones reserved for the nights when he was the bait, luring unsuspecting bloodbags into Red’s clutches.

He turned heads as he made his way to the bar, a swagger in his step and a predatory gleam in his eye. Ordering a Jack and Coke in near perfect Portuguese, he slung it back in one go and then perched on a bar stool, striking a provocative pose and waiting for the lambs to come to slaughter.

He didn’t have to wait long before a young stallion wearing his own pair of leather pants approached and asked Spike to dance. Spike looked him up and down, taking in the golden skin and dark hair that marked him as a native Brazilian, and agreed. He still had time to kill before Red’s class ended, and they could get down to the real killing.

So he went to the dance floor with his bloodbag – Sergio, his name was – and set about seducing his dinner. He touched, he gyrated, and ran his fingers through that thick black hair, knowing he was driving Sergio wild and always avoiding the contact the human wanted most: the throbbing bulge in Sergio’s leather pants, matched by the one in Spike’s own.

The music slowed, and Spike turned Sergio in his arms, tilting the man’s head back and suckling at his neck while he thrust against his back. Sergio moaned, and Spike did too, imagining the sweet blood flowing down his throat and fucking Red next to Sergio’s corpse.

“The bathroom,” Sergio murmured in Spike’s ear in Portuguese. Spike shook his head. “Too public,” he answered in the same language.

He waited.

“Would you like to come back to my place?” Sergio said.

“I’d love to. We just have to pick someone up first.”

 

**-l-**

Red skipped down the steps at the front of the _Universidade_ , wearing one of the brightly patterned dresses that were all the rage in Brazil just then, the short boxy skirt flaring around her hips. The look was completed by her spiky heels.

Spike bit his lip, imagining those heels digging into his back.

“I’m not into girls,” Sergio said from the backseat of the Mustang, an almost petulant air about him.

“Don’t worry,” Spike reassured the puppy. “She’s my sister.”

Sergio still looked skeptical, but he relaxed, leaning back in his seat. Red opened the door and climbed in the front, turning to smile at Sergio and introduce herself in clumsy Portuguese.

They chatted haltingly for a few minutes, Sergio pausing every so often to give Spike directions to his apartment building. Once the Mustang was parked in guest parking, they all got out and piled into the elevator. To Sergio’s obvious surprise, when the elevator doors closed Spike pressed him to the wall and shoved his tongue in the human’s mouth, unashamedly dry humping Sergio in front of Red.

His sister politely studied the elevator buttons, not bothered in the least.

The elevator pinged and they got out on Sergio’s floor, following him to the door of his flat. He glanced between Spike and Red.

“Não se preocupe comigo. Eu só vou assistir televisão,” Red assured him.

_Don’t mind me. I’ll just watch TV._

Sergio looked to Spike, and Spike licked his lips, sensually drawing one hand down the exposed skin of his chest.

Sergio let them in.

Red helped herself to the television, sitting primly on the lumpy sofa and flipping the channels. Sergio started to speak, but whatever he was going to say died in his throat as Spike dragged him towards the bedroom.

 

**-l-**

 

Red focused on the sounds coming out of the human’s bedroom, her nose quivering as she took in the scent of lust, liquor, and Spike. Her Dark Prince was making Sergio beg for his touch, for the release that Spike kept denying. Red could feel the roiling sensation of dark contentment flooding into her through the bond she shared with her Blood Brother, her body tightening.

She let her hands run over her breasts and down to her thighs, experiencing everything that Spike experienced; the heady rush of seducing Sergio so completely and the sweet friction of sex, the music made of human whimpers.

Spike orgasmed, and Red did too, her hips arching up off the couch into the empty air.

It took several delicious minutes to come down from the high. Purring to herself, Red stood and made her way toward the bedroom.

She found Spike and Sergio naked, Sergio bent over the bed with Spike standing behind him, gripping his hips. They made a beautiful image, one so pale and the other a dark golden brown. If Red were the type to share, she’d consider turning Sergio just to have him pose with Spike for her.

But Red didn’t share.

Sergio noticed her presence and shouted something at her in Portuguese, straightening up. But Red wasn’t listening. She was lost in Spike’s blue eyes, in the dark passion and devotion she saw there.

Sergio tried to pull away from him, but Spike held the man fast, though not tightly enough to set off his chip.

Red looked into his eyes, her irises flooding black as she called upon her magic. “Be calm, Sergio,” she said in her broken Portuguese. “You are safe.”

Sergio’s struggles stilled. He fell under her thrall, swaying lightly from side to side as she approached him. Spike still held him, his hands like white marble against Sergio’s skin.

Glad that her heels made her tall enough that they wouldn’t have to move, Red shifted smoothly into vamp face and delicately sunk her fangs into the big vein in Sergio’s neck. Eyes still black, she kept him calm, leaning over the man’s shoulder to pass blood from her mouth to Spike’s.

Spike moaned, his lips red from her bloody kiss. Red did it again, passing one mouthful of blood to Spike for every one that she swallowed, Sergio trapped between them as they both began to thrust against the mortal in a slow rocking rhythm.

It wasn’t until Sergio was nearly drained that Red let her power over him break. Eyes clouded by her thrall became clear, only to cloud once more with encroaching oblivion.

He gaped at Red, recoiling and croaking, “Senhora Sagramento!” Twisting, he looked at Spike, feebly trying to grip his arms, as if there was any help for him there. When he caught sight of Spike’s face – fangs and demonic ridges, eyes burning like twin flames – he cried out and uttered his last words in a broken whisper. “A belo morte.”

_The Beautiful Death._

They let his corpse drop and had sex on his bed.

“Looks like you have a name now too,” Red giggled, coiling herself around her Spike like some great cat basking in the sun.

Spike snorted, lighting up a cigarette. “Maybe they’ll start making shrines for me next. You ‘n me, Red. We could be a new religion.”

 

**-l-**

Summer was nearly upon them when Red started to notice a watcher in her night classes. And not just a watcher, but a Watcher, if the woman’s appearance and heavily accented Portuguese were anything to go by.

Red told Spike, and spent a night watching him pace and rave, missing that evening’s class. He didn’t like this, he ranted. Not that he didn’t think she could take care of herself, it just made him nervous, was all. It would be different, if he didn’t have the chip. If he didn’t have the chip, so much would be different. He could defend her from any demon, but against humans she was on her own.

He couldn’t bear the thought of her being staked.

Red tried to soothe him, and he snarled, kicking over one of their chairs. He was going for his cigarettes when she realized that it was William who was afraid, and so it must be Willow who offered comfort.

They spent the night curled together, looking out the open patio doors to the stars above. No sex, no blood, just tender touches and whispered words. William recited a poem, and Willow wept to hear it, burying her face in William’s neck.

_Willow, William, Will._

When the sun rose, they retreated to the darkness of their bedroom and sprawled across their massive bed to discuss what to do about the Watcher.

If they killed her, it might bring the Slayer, the Council, or both down on their heads. Spike didn’t think they were ready for that, and sensing his determination, Red bowed to his will. She’d only been a vampire for a little less than a year, after all.

In the end, they decided to leave the Watcher alive, and act as if they hadn’t realized what she was. If they waited long enough, she’d reveal what she was doing. Humans always did.

 

**-l-**

Three weeks later, Red received a note at the end of her night class.

_Senhora Sagramento & A Belo Morte:_

_The Council has an offer for you_

_Meet me in front of the Cathedral do Fortaleza at sunset tomorrow_

It was written in English.


	5. Mommy's Little Monster

Spike and Red got to the _Cathedral do Fortaleza_ early. They spent the day in the city’s sewers, watching from storm drains to see if the Watchers were laying a trap, Red hissing and complaining that the daylight hurt her eyes.

It was very possible that Buffy had tracked them down to slay Spike and lay Willow to rest.

But the time came, and only the one Watcher showed up, a short little thing, even shorter than Red, wearing a drab brown skirt suit that couldn’t have made her more out of place in Fortaleza if she tried. She stood with her back to the great cathedral doors, positioning herself so that she’d only have to take two steps to flee to its relative safety.

Smart of the chit. Most vampires wouldn’t willingly give chase into a cathedral. Too much holy water and the like about.

They left the sewers a block away from the cathedral. Wouldn’t do to ruin their air of mystery by crawling out of a gutter right in front of a Watcher. Then they split up, communicating silently through their bond. Red approached the Watcher head on, her doll tucked into the crook of her arm, and Spike snuck around to the side, staying out of sight, ready to rush to Red’s aid at a moment’s notice.

For all the good he could do against a human.

But still, they wanted to know what it was the Council wanted, and whether they should fight or flee. For that, he supposed they would actually have to talk to the Watcher.

“You wanted _Senhora Sagramento_ , and here she is, dancing on a moonbeam,” Red called to the Watcher in English, barmy talk in full swing. She tilted her head to the side and smiled a little girl smile.

The Watcher jumped, and Spike could hear her heart start to pound.

“You came. I mean, yes. Of course you came.”

In an instant Red was behind the woman, gently moving her hair to one side, pink tongue darting out to slide down the Watcher’s neck. “Mmm, tastes good. Wanna play?”

The Watcher stiffened and revealed she was wearing one of those tin pendants that were supposed to invoke Red’s protection. _Santa Senhora Sagramento_. Spike had to stifle a laugh. Did the Watchers think there was more to the pendants than Red’s sense of whimsy? She would love that.

“I have a message from the Council. A proposition.”

Red started humming a tune Spike recognized as _Mommy’s Little Monster_ , idly stroking the Watcher’s cheek. The scent of the chit’s fear was coming off her in waves. Spike closed his eyes as he breathed in, momentarily shifting into his game face and then back again.

“W-where’s _A Belo Morte_? This concerns him as well.”

“He is always with me,” Red answered, releasing the Watcher to spin around in a circle, a manic grin on her face. “What’s your name?” she asked suddenly.

“K-katie,” the woman was shocked into answering.

Red laughed. “Katie. I was called Katie once.”

The Watcher looked delighted at the tidbit of information. Spike had to stifle a laugh. He could just see the entry in the Watcher Diaries now:

_Senhora Sagramento_

_Slight of stature, red hair, a bit mad. Was known as Katie in life. Can be repelled by a pendant carved with her image, but only if the wearer is pure of heart._

Bloody Watchers never got anything right.

Spike chose that moment to make his appearance, moving so fast that to the Watcher it would seem like he appeared from thin air. He wrapped his arms around Red, pulling her back against his chest and resting his chin on her shoulder. “What’s this, princess? Playing with your food?”

The Watcher’s heart skipped a beat when she saw Spike.

“ _A Belo Morte_ ,” she breathed, staring at them with something akin to awe.

Spike ignored her, leaning down to draw Red into a kiss.

“You mustn’t forget Rose,” Red held up her doll, mischief glinting in her eyes. “She wants a kiss too.”

Spike glared at her, silently promising that he would get back at her for this, but he raised the doll to his lips and kissed its porcelain face.

Then he leveled his gaze on Katie the Watcher.

“What do you want?”

Katie blinked, looking half hypnotized. And they hadn’t even done anything to her! The Watchers needed stricter recruiting guidelines. This chit looked like she’d been reading too much Anne Rice, or what was that new one, the one that had all the teenagers thinking they were sparkly ponces?

_Twilight._

“What do you want?” Spike repeated.

The Watcher jumped. “The Council is amassing a small force of elite demons. The United States government has imprisoned the Slayer in an underground facility…”

Katie went on to explain to them that it was in their best interests to help the Slayer and destroy the facility, as the Initiative was a danger to them all.

Spike and Red shared a glance.

“Why us?” Spike pressed.

“You are… very effective killers, but not without conscience. We know about all the children you’ve helped. The Council feels that if we must rely on demons, then they should at least be somewhat good.”

So the Council didn’t know that _Senhora Sagramento_ and _A Belo Morte_ were one and the same as the two vamps that had a lot of history with this particular Slayer. Or if they did, they weren’t telling.

Red raised her fingers in front of Katie’s face and snapped, her eyes flooding black. Katie’s mouth slacked open slightly as she fell into a trance.

“Your chip,” Red said to Spike. “If we can find the Initiative’s plans for it, I might finally be able to disable it or get it out.”

Spike had only broached the subject of his chip with Red once, right after she’d finished her magic lessons. She’d told him that until she could see what it was, ticking away in his head, it was too dangerous for her to try to do anything about it.

He looked into the blank eyes of the Watcher. “Looks like we’re going back to Sunnyhell.”

**-l-**

Buffy sat at a table in the Magic Box, going over maps with Giles. She’d escaped from the Initiative compound just a week before, with the help of Riley. Once he’d realized that the Initiative was going to go after anyone with any kind of power, even someone who was human, Riley had turned on them, purposefully leaving Buffy’s cell door unlocked the night he was on guard duty. He was the Scooby Gang’s spy now, bringing news of orders and whatever plans he could sneak out of the facility about defense systems and layout.

He was the one who had led her through the maze of halls in the compound and smuggled her out of the holding area where she’d been kept for what Giles told her was only a month, but had felt like a year. She’d seen so much while she was there. Some of the demons in the cages were bloodthirsty evil things deserving of slayage, but others… others had been like her, just normal people, no matter what they looked like. And still others had been somewhere in between.

She thought of the teenage vampire girl that had been housed in the cell next to hers. There they were, Slayer and vampire. But kept in that prison for the supernatural, they had formed an alliance. They looked out for each other.

It had been eye opening.

Though not as much as the revelation that she was part demon herself, according to the Initiative scientists. They’d talked over her like she couldn’t understand them, and eventually she had given up trying to reason with them and just started listening, trying to figure out a way to escape. That’s when she heard them talking about how she had a demon genome thingy on some chromosome that had been activated by some… other thingy, and that that explained her strength and endurance and basically all the other Slayer stuff. It made her wonder if all Slayers were just from a bloodline of humans that had bred with demons a bajillion years ago.

She tried not dwell on it, but it was always there, just under her thoughts.

She put a hand to her temple. There was something else that was always there. Her chip. The Initiative had chipped her. She could still hurt demons, still be the Slayer, but against humans she was powerless. She hadn’t realized how often she interfered in purely human fights until the third time she had crumpled into a ball, a scream of anguish torn from her throat after she pulled some frat boy off a girl who didn’t want to dance with him.

It was going to make the Initiative a lot harder to fight.

She almost felt bad for taunting Spike when he was chipped.

Almost.

“I’m not sure about this plan, Giles,” Buffy said for the hundredth time. “Are you sure we can trust the Council? And this whole bringing in demons to help us fight thing…”

Giles nodded, slowly taking his glasses off his face and beginning to polish them. “I have my own misgivings, Buffy, but with your, erm… current affliction, we will need the help to fight the Initiative. It is unlikely that we would find many humans willing to take on such an endeavor, let alone equipped to do so. And the Council is being careful in whom they choose to recruit. I have been assured that most of the demons will surely perish in the conflict, and those that survive shouldn’t prove much of a problem to you.”

“Well they would say that, wouldn’t they? I mean, they probably don’t care if one of the demon squad ends up killing me, so long as we still take out the Initiative. I mean, that’s probably really the plan, why they’re sending demons instead of Watchers. We take out the Initiative, and then it’s bloodbath city.”

Giles squeezed her hand. He had his Ripper look on his face when he said, “I promise you I won’t let that happen.”

Buffy sighed and squeezed his hand back.

“So what oogie ally are we meeting today?” she asked after they’d both gone back to their reading for a few minutes. Every time a new demon trickled into town to join their growing force, they met in the Magic Box. None of them were stupid enough to show their strange bedfellows where they lived.

“Angel will be here tonight, and the Council has sent two vampires from South America.” Giles consulted a sheet of paper sitting next to him. “One _Senhora Sagramento_ and her companion _Belo Morte_. The Watcher assigned to recruit them sent a letter. She believes the woman to be more powerful, but there is a pendant you can wear to invoke her protection, so long as you have never abused a child.”

Buffy blinked. “So they’re not your standard vamps.”

Giles read on, “ _Belo Morte_ is said to be beautiful enough to tempt an angel, and acts as _Senhora Sagramento_ ’s lure and protector, bringing her victims and watching over her while she feeds.”

“Well that’s… great, I guess,” Buffy said uncertainly. “Why’d they agree to help?”

Most of the demons who had shown up for the temporary truce with the Slayer had been promised something by the Council: money, asylum, magic, blood, vengeance, humanity, whatever promise the Council had to make.

“The letter doesn’t say,” Giles answered. “But they have a history of rescuing children from abusers. It may just be that the Initiative represents the kind of victims they prefer.”

The bell over the door jangled and Buffy looked up, preparing to deal with the new pair of vamps. But it was just Xander and Anya. Buffy waved to them and took a deep breath. She needed to work out some tension.

“I’ll be in the back room doing some training. Let me know when the cavalry gets here.”

**-l-**

“You ready, luv?” Spike asked Red. He stared down at her with his intense blue eyes, and she leaned across the front seat of the Mustang to kiss him.

They’d taken their time leaving Fortaleza, Red performing a protection ritual to keep any other creatures of the night from moving into their villa while they were gone and creating a pair of upper level minions to look after the place.

Then they’d loaded the Mustang with weapons and cash and a duffle of clothes, and taken off. Spike still thought the whole thing might be a trick to lure them back to Sunnydale, so he wanted their car with them. And he insisted that they leave stores of cash and disposable cell phones in various bus lockers along their route, in case they were separated.

Willow found it touching, the precautions William was taking to make sure that they’d be able to find each other again. Red admired Spike’s foresight, thinking this is why he’d become a master so young and stayed on top for so long.

“I’m ready. Let’s go play,” she smiled at Spike, clutching Rose in her arms. They had already agreed that she was going to keep up the crazy. It would just be too fun to mess with the Slayer and her friends, and if this _was_ a trap, they’d need every advantage they could get.

But if they could find a way to disable Spike’s chip, to make Red’s sweet prince whole again, the risk would be worth it.

Red kissed Spike again, and then they got out of the car, Spike insisting on entering the Magic Box ahead of her. Already slipping into her role, Red stood docilely behind him, mostly hidden.

She could hear the heartbeats in the room speed up. One, two, three…. And a fourth, in the back room.

“Spike!” A voice Red recognized as belonging to Xander practically hissed, full of loathing.

“Spike, what are you doing here?” That was Giles, sounding reasonable despite the frantic thrum of his heart. His blood pressure had to be skyrocketing.

“Here to help with the bloody Initiative, aren’t I?” Spike said. Red could tell by the way he said it that he was smirking.

“What makes you think we’d take your help?!” Xander was standing now. “And what can you even do?!”

Spike stayed calm. “If you don’t want my help, why’d you send a Watcher to invite me?”

There was a pause.

Then Giles said, “ _Belo Morte_?”

“In the flesh,” Spike confirmed, irreverently saluting Giles with two fingers.

“Then that means _Senhora Sagramento_ is…”

Red stepped out from behind Spike, looking up at him with a pout on her lips. “Spike, I want to go dancing.”

She could hear Xander and Giles’ hearts skip a beat and it was all she could do to keep a smile off her face. Spike was enjoying this as much as she was, she could feel it through their bond.

“We’ll go dancing soon, princess,” Spike told her, playing his part. He pulled her into his side, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I promise. Brother just needs to talk to these people first.”

Red looked at the humans in the room, as if just noticing them for the first time. “I remember them.”

“Wills?” Xander said, so softly that she would have missed it if she hadn’t been a vampire. There was so much raw pain in his face that Red wiggled her toes inside her boots. Oh, the fun she could have with him…

Moving further into the room, Red smiled brightly and started to sing in an eerie, off key voice, “Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you? We’ve got some work to do now…”

Red swayed, and Xander swayed with her, and it occurred to her how easy it would be to drain him and turn him, making him into a puppy she could play with forever. She hadn’t even used any of her powers on him, and he already looked mesmerized.

Anya started to edge closer to Xander. She was the only one who hadn’t exhibited any big reaction when Red and Spike had entered the shop, but now she was nervous on Xander’s behalf.

Red could hear Spike growl, so low the humans couldn’t hear it.

She loved it when he got possessive. Made her feel wanted.

She turned back to Spike. “Puppy’s heart goes pitter patter. Can I keep him?”

She watched Spike struggle with himself. On some level, he knew she was seriously asking if he would be upset if she turned Xander. She could almost hear his thoughts: On the one hand, having Xander around to torment forever would be fun, but on the other, Spike didn’t like to share any more than Red did.

He eventually answered, “Remember what we talked about in the car, luv. What are the rules while we’re in Sunnydale?” He raised a brow.

That translated to, _Maybe. We’ll see what happens after I get this bloody chip out._

Pouting again, Red sighed, clutching her doll to her chest. “No biting without permission.”

Returning her gaze to Xander, she tilted her head. “May I bite you? Just a little taste?” she asked in a childlike voice.

“No!” Anya said immediately, pulling Xander back. That seemed to snap him out of his stupor. “Ah, uh, no thanks, Will!” he sputtered, scrambling away from her.

Red made a show of looking disappointed, and then twirled through the room toward Giles. She could sense Spike moving behind her, prepared to come to her defense if her little game turned deadly.

“May I bite _you_?” Red asked Giles, batting her eyes at him and doing her best to look cute and harmless.

Five things seemed to happen all at once.

Giles opened his mouth to sputter an answer, but before he could get it out, Buffy was there, having just come from the back room. Without waiting for explanations, she grabbed Red and pulled her away from Giles, slamming her against a shelf. There was a clatter as a row of bottled oils fell to the floor.

When Spike saw the Slayer reaching for a stake, he saw red. He swooped in and wrapped his arms around Buffy’s neck, squeezing hard, choking her and pulling her off of Red. His chip fired before he could snap the bones in the Slayer’s neck, and he screamed as pain tore through his head, collapsing to the ground with his hands fisted in his hair. Freed from the Slayer’s hold, Red whirled on Buffy, in full vamp face, and sent the Slayer flying with a vicious scissor kick. Then she took up a protective stance over Spike’s huddled form, the edges of her irises circled in black as she prepared to call upon her magic.

Lastly, Angel burst through the door. He hovered a moment, conflicted, but when Buffy got up and Spike stayed down, Angel went to join his childer, standing next to Red.

Red looked up at Angel. “Granddaddy?”

He nodded, and Red took that to mean that he was on their side, if only for the moment. He would guard them. She let the magic gathering around her dissipate.

Kneeling, Red pulled Spike into her arms. She could feel echoes of the pain in his head through their bond, and in that moment she wished with all of her demon and the remnants of her human self that she could take it all away.

“My sweet prince,” she murmured, rocking him gently, massaging his temples with one hand.

Then she felt it, a prickle on the back of her neck. A dark trill down her spine, a sweet song of the night pounding through her blood.

Her sire approached.

Drusilla breezed through the door of the Magic Box, pale, perfect, ethereal. She looked like some dark queen of faeries, and Red found herself wondering if William had ever read Shakespeare to her – for she was Mab, she was Titania, she was the Wyrd Sisters on the heath…

Dimly Red noticed Angel holding up a hand to keep Buffy at bay, but the rest of her attention was focused on her sire. Drusilla took one look at Red and Spike, and went to them at once. “My sweet darlings. My little Spike needs his Mummy,” she crooned, kneeling and shifting Spike from Red’s lap to hers, offering her throat to the blond vampire.

Spike hesitated. Red could sense his ambivalence about their sire, about the way she’d left him, could feel the warring hurt and desire in the back of her mind where their connection dwelled, but in the end practicality won out. He shifted into game face and sunk his fangs into Drusilla’s neck, drinking deep of the sire’s blood that would keep his head from ringing for days.

Red tried to act as if she was unaffected, but it was a hard fought battle, and ultimately, she was still a very young vampire. The scent of Drusilla’s blood making her squirm, she whimpered and said, “Mummy?”

Drusilla held out her wrist. “Don’t be jealous of your brother, my little Red. Such a good, sweet princess, watching over her brother like Mummy asked.”

Red vamped out and bit down, losing herself in the ecstasy of drinking from her sire.

And so there they sat, Red and Spike drinking from Drusilla like two children feeding at their mother’s breast, and Angel standing guard over all of them looking like he would murder anyone that so much as looked at them funny.

“So… the reason I’m not staking anyone is…?” Buffy broke the silence.

**-l-**

Angel thought it best that his childer were separated from the humans while explanations were given. As soon as Spike could stand, Angel ushered all of them towards the back room, telling them to stay put and that he’d come get them once everything was sorted out.

“Granddaddy, my dolly!” Willow cried out, sounding for all the world like a real little girl talking to a more wholesome sort of grandfather.

His heart breaking, Angel retrieved the porcelain doll and gave it to the redhead, then sent her through the door with Spike and Dru. Then he took a deep breath that he didn’t really need, but made him feel better anyway, and turned to face the room, planting himself squarely in front of the training room door.

He wasn’t sure if he was protecting the vampires from the people or the people from the vampires.

“Who is going to pay for these?” Anya asked crossly, indicating the broken bottles of oil. Angel was about to placate her, but Buffy interrupted them.

“What are they doing here, Angel?”

He almost flinched at the anger in her voice. The simmering rage.

“I didn’t know that Spike and Willow would be here,” he answered softly. “As for Dru, she showed up in L.A. yesterday, saying that she had to come with me because Spike would need her. I thought it was best not to leave her to her own devices.”

What Drusilla had actually said was that her darlings would need her to mend their soiled capes, but he figured Buffy didn’t need the specifics.

“I may be able to shed some light,” Giles began, revealing that Spike and Willow were actually two of the vampires the Council had recruited for the battle against the Initiative, albeit under different names.

“So Wills is Senora San Francisco?” Buffy asked, blessedly distracted from exacting vengeance on Dru for turning Willow in the first place. If it had been Spike, Angel would have killed the boy himself, but Dru… Dru couldn’t help what she was. What Angelus had made her into. He would fight her readily enough when she was an active threat, but when the damage had already been done, it was hard to silence the voice inside that screamed she was his responsibility, his childe.

“ _Senhora Sagramento_ ,” Giles corrected. “And if the stories of her exploits in South America are to be believed, she is very, very advanced for her age.”

“Well, she always has been,” Xander joked weakly.

“What? Oh, yes… quite,” Giles muttered, perusing a sheaf of papers he’d picked up from a table. Angel strained his eyes, but even with vampire sight he couldn’t read the pages from across the room.

“I mean that she exhibits great power for a vampire of one year. And much greater self-control and capacity for emotion than your usual fledgling.” Giles thumbed through the pages, stopping when he found what he wanted. “Yes, see. The Watchers who have been documenting her have estimated that she is at least forty.”

“Spike was the same way,” Angel surprised himself by saying. Suddenly all eyes were on him. He felt compelled to continue. “That was why Angelus… why I pushed him to become what he is. There was more humanity left in him than the rest of us, and Angelus saw it as a weakness. And a threat.”

“Fascinating,” Giles seemed to have forgotten that the vampires they were discussing were just in the other room and that one of them had once been a Scooby. “Perhaps it has something do to with Drusilla. She sired both of them, did she not?”

Angel could hear Spike growling. “To hear her tell it, she made them for each other.”

“Ok wait,” Xander interrupted, an incredulous look on his face. “If Wills is _Senhora_ Sacriwhatever, does that mean that Spike is the guy who’s supposedly so beautiful that it tempts angels? I mean. That’s a laugh!”

_So beautiful that he tempts angels?_

Closing his eyes, Angel found that he didn’t find it funny at all.

**-l-**

Spike paced the length of the room, grinding his teeth together. He really bloody needed to hit something. Out in the shop, he could hear the poof airing all the family’s dirty laundry, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Drusilla sat in the corner with Red giggling and fawning all over her, drunk on sire’s blood, that head of crimson hair sprawled across Dru’s lap.

He growled to himself, his hands curling into fists.

Red sat up. He could feel her reaching out to him through the bond, but he quickly withdrew from the connection. She’d probably leave with Drusilla when this was all over ( _he knew all too well the pull of the sire, the unquestioning love, oh yes, all too well_ ), and he bloody well wasn’t going with them, so he might as well start getting used to not feeling her. And to the taste of pig’s blood.

“But nothing, Angel! She did this, she made Willow into that thing, and she’s not here for the truce!” he could clearly hear the Slayer, arguing in favor of staking Dru. Angel’s soothing tones followed.

Spike groaned, gnashing his teeth and pulling out a fag. It broke in two in his hands. He was still hurt by Dru’s leaving, her cheating, her… her everything, but he’d be damned again if he just sat there quietly and watched her be staked. Red was watching him with that look on her face that meant she was going to get what she wanted. Called it her Resolve Face. Good. She was paying attention to what was being said by the bloody Scoobies. She’d be ready to protect Dru.

Growing impatient with waiting around for the fight to start, Spike whirled, his duster flapping behind him. He went over to a punching bag hanging from the ceiling by a chain, presumably there for the Slayer, and started taking out his frustrations. He kicked, and it was Dru. He punched and it was Angelus. He broke into a flurry of blows and it was all of the Scoobies, and then he shifted, ripping the punching bag open with his teeth, and it was the fucking Initiative spilling blood of sand on his feet.

He felt a hand on his arm and he whirled, snarling. Red snarled back at him, ridges forming on her forehead as her fangs appeared. Spike moved to strike her, but she caught his hand, surprising him. She’d never been so rebellious before Dru waltzed back into their lives!

He chose to ignore the other times they had battled for dominance. He was set on this being Dru’s fault.

“Now, now, children,” Dru’s voice stopped their fight before it could really begin. “You must play nice or Mummy will be cross.”

Rising, the woman Spike had once worshipped as a goddess glided over to them, just as graceful as he remembered. He shivered, every vampiric instinct telling him to go to her, and every thought screaming that he would not go down that road again.

“Dance with me, princess?” Dru asked, extending her hand to Red.

“Yes, Mummy.” Red let Spike’s arm go and took Dru’s hand, the pair of them falling into a waltz, though there was no music.

Spike watched for several long moments, his attention split between the two vampires dancing and the conversation taking place in the shop. If he hadn’t been out of his mind with the pain inflicted by the chip, he’d have never let himself be herded into the back.

Red spun away from Dru, and Spike suddenly found himself pulled into their dance. He dragged his feet, but he went, justifying it by reminding himself that the Slayer was waiting just outside to stake all of them. It was best that he didn’t tear into Dru and Red to show them who was boss until they were free and clear. After all, if the Slayer came in here to finish him off, there wasn’t much he’d be able to do. He’d just have to hope someone would save him.

He gnashed his teeth again.

At a gesture from Drusilla, Red broke their circle, going to stand watch at the door. Spike wound up spinning round and round with Dru, her nails digging into his arms, just like old times.

Eventually, he couldn’t help himself.

“Why?” he asked his sire, his lover, his mother. He spoke Portuguese, not wanting Peaches to overhear. Last time he had checked, that was one language Angel couldn’t speak. But Dru had spent enough time in Brazil that she might have picked it up.

“It is just as I told you, my Spike,” Drusilla answered him in the same language, looking up into his face with those bright eyes. “We remain friends. You are my little Spike. But when I look into your eyes, I can’t see my reflection.”

Spike understood what she was telling him. “But I do love you!” he protested. “Or, I did, before…”

Drusilla laughed, but there was no malice. “My poor, sweet Willy. Always the last to know. Don’t worry. You will always have my heart. And I shan’t take yours from you.”

Before Spike could reply, Dru pushed him toward Red. “Now dance with your sister,” she finished, still speaking Portuguese. “I want to watch my darlings before I have to go.”

“Go?” Red interrupted in English as Spike took her in his arms.

“It’s not time yet for Mummy to come home to her children. The children must play, and they won’t if Mummy is at home to watch them,” Dru clarified her leave taking, in effect not clearing up anything at all.

Except for the fact that she was going to let Spike and Red have their space, and wasn’t here to take the auburn haired vampiress with her.

Red looked up at Spike, her eyes turned to familiar pools of amber-green. _Please_ , the look said, echoed by their bond. _Brother, please_.

That silent request was followed by an outpouring of love and affection for him from his sister and his sire. Red ran her hands over Spike’s chest. Drusilla wrapped her arms around his waist, a soft purr in her throat.

As always, Spike could not deny them anything.

_William, Willow, Will._

_Drusilla._

**-l-**

“Ok, so we all agree then,” Buffy said. She scanned everyone’s faces. Giles and Xander nodded solemnly. Angel looked relieved, Buffy thought because he wouldn’t have to pick between her and his… she guessed the vampires in the basement were like his kids. His kids that didn’t turn out how he wanted, and stayed out all night and got bad grades and dressed skanky, but still his kids. She was trying really hard to understand, and she believed Angel when he told her that killing Drusilla wouldn’t do anything but hurt Willow. Erm. Not-Willow.

Anya didn’t care what they decided so long as someone paid for the stuff that had been damaged in the fight. Angel sighed and handed over his wallet.

“Ok then. They get to be part of the truce. Even Drusilla. If they don’t bite anyone while they’re here, I won’t introduce them to Mr. Pointy.”

She started to move to the back room.

“I’ll do it, Buff,” Xander stopped her. “If they see you first they might think they’re about to get dusted.”

Buffy figured Xander was just trying to keep anything else in the shop from breaking so he wouldn’t have to listen to Anya complain about it, but she let him go ahead of her. She could tell the vamps weren’t near enough to the door to try anything.

Angel looked up, saying, “Wait!” at the same time that Xander opened the door.

They found themselves treated to the sight of Spike, Willow, and Drusilla, all naked and writhing together in a big pile of weird sweaty vampire sex. Except. That wasn’t sweat. That was blood.

Ick.

Buffy’s mouth dropped open. Xander squeaked. Giles came over and said, “Good Lord!”

“See that thing the Spike is doing with his tongue?” Anya commented. “That’s what I’ve been trying to get you to do.”

Angel closed the door.

**-l-**

They waited thirty minutes, Anya torturing them all with increasingly detailed speculation about the vampire threesome going on in the back room, and then Angel silently opened the training room door and went in.

All was silent for a second, and then Anya said, “Do you think he went to join them?”

“Shut up, Anya,” Buffy burst.

Usually when she was this tense, she’d go slay something or go train, but she wasn’t allowed to slay anyone here and the damn vampires were having sex in her training room. Ugh, she’d need to flip that mat over.

Anya pouted, and Xander comforted her. Then the training room door opened, and the vampires seemed to pour out of it. Angel came first, his mouth pressed in a thin line. Next was Drusilla, a feline smile curving her lips. Then Willow, who was carrying a creepy porcelain doll, and lastly Spike, who hadn’t bothered to button up his red shirt.

“Ew, Spike. Finished getting dressed, please,” she growled at him.

He leered at her, taking out a cigarette and sliding it between his lips. “What’s the matter Slayer, see something you like?”

There was a growl. Buffy was surprised when Spike looked at Angel. Angel usually didn’t do the whole growly vampire thing.

“Sod off, Peaches,” Spike said.

Buffy took a step forward, getting ready to threaten Spike like she used to, to remind him that he wasn’t in charge here, but the way Willow moved to stand next to the blond vampire changed her mind. Willow wasn’t chipped, and she was kind of nuts. She might not understand that Buffy wasn’t really going to permanently hurt Spike, at least not right now, and then they’d fight and then what if Buffy had to stake her and –

The ground seemed to sway under her feet. She blinked, taking a deep breath.

“Buffy?” Giles said softly.

She shook her head at him.

“We’re waiting for Riley,” she told the assembled group. “He’s supposed to be getting new intel tonight.” Intel. That was a word she’d picked up while a prisoner of the Initiative. “But I’ll fill you in on everything else while we wait.”

**-l-**

The bloody Initiative were a bigger bunch of morons than he’d known, Spike thought as he listened to the Slayer’s tale of being kidnapped and held prisoner in the facility. She’d hesitated to fight back against her attackers at first, because they were human. That had gotten her locked in a steel and glass cage for a month.

 _Got to be really fucking stupid to get the White Hats and the Big Bad brassed off at you at the same time._ It wasn’t the first time in history that the Slayer and the things she hunted would work together to stop a common enemy, and it wouldn’t be the last. But Spike was still amazed the more he heard. And people said vampires were monsters. At least they were _supposed_ to be.

“Oh, um, good Lord,” a mumbled exclamation came from the Watcher, interrupting Buffy’s monologue. Spike turned to see that Dru had gotten bored with listening to the Slayer and had crept up on old Rupes and plunked herself down in his lap. She smiled at him now, running her long nails lightly over his cheek. The Watcher was clearly nervous and not a little put out and doing his best to hold still, lest he provoke Dru into attacking him. Smart of him, really. Dru could be quite kittenish at times, drawn by movement and getting nasty if she felt threatened.

The Slayer started for them, but Peaches held up a hand to say he’d handle it. “Dru, come here,” he said firmly in an authoritative tone that somehow lacked the command of the old days.

Dru ignored him.

“Such a pretty boy, with such sweet kisses. I can see the wolf in the lamb,” she fussed over the Watcher, removing his glasses and running her fingers through his hair. “I have missed you.”

Spike bit his lip to keep from laughing at the looks the humans were exchanging. Rupes’ heart was starting to pound, an element of fear and a little bit of lust underlying his scent. Demon Girl looked mildly concerned, which for her was probably a wild declaration of affection. The moron’s face was twisted in a mask of hatred that had to go beyond what Dru was doing at the moment. Looked like someone was still mad about Red’s turning…

The Slayer looked ready to turn this little game into a brawl, but she wasn’t quite there yet. Buffy knew that if she startled Dru, she could kill the Watcher far quicker than the Slayer could stop her.

Red moved over to Dru and the Watcher, sitting on the arm of the chair and joining Drusilla in petting the old git’s hair. Clever of Red, that was, keeping up her charade of being nutters, but putting herself in a prime position to keep things from getting out of hand.

“Would you like a new daddy?” Dru asked Red, looking up at her with a smile.

Red leaned down, her lips brushing the Watcher’s temple as she answered, “Giles has always been like a Daddy to me.”

 “Drusilla,” Angel tried again.

Spike finally lost his battle with his laughter. They all looked at him, with the exception of Dru and Red, varying levels of hostility and annoyance plain on their faces. “Come off it, Poof. You’re going to have to let the demon loose to get through to her, and we both know you won’t do that in front of your pals here.” He snorted, pulling out his lighter to light his fag, since the Watcher wasn’t in any position to complain about the smoke at the moment.

“You know the terms of the truce, Spike,” the Slayer started in, looking like she was working herself up into a good strop.

“Nobody’s been bit, have they?” Spike cut her off. “Never said anything beyond that.”

The Slayer blanched. Spike relished the expression. It was nice to be someone she had to take seriously again.

“Spike,” Angel appealed to him.

Spike heaved a sigh, but it was mostly for show.  “Bloody hell. She kills every minion just as soon as I’ve got them how I like them, and then we’re not here a night before she’s wantin’ Xapper as a pet and the Watcher for a Daddy.”

The moron squeaked and Demon Girl made some remark about not sharing, but Spike ignored them, taking a long drag on his fag before saying in a bored voice, “Come here, poppets. You’re making the humans twitchy and Spike will never get his work done like this.”

As one, Red and Dru left the Watcher alone and came to drape themselves around Spike.

He gave Peaches a smug look.

The bell on the shop door rang.

“Hey I got… what’s going on?” Riley asked.


	6. Ha Ha, You're Dead

After Riley was filled in on how things stood with the Fanged Threesome, he scowled at Spike, but produced a stack of disks that he’d stolen from Walsh’s office. That had led to all the humans gathering around the store computer while they tried to open the files on the disks.

Buffy stayed back. She wasn’t any help with computer stuff, and she wanted to keep her eyes on the vamps.

It gave her a pang to realize that she was even edgy about Angel. She trusted him to keep the other members of his weird little family from killing anyone, but if it came to stakes and fangs she just wasn’t sure what side he’d come down on.

Before the Initiative, that realization would have made her feel angry, betrayed. But now… She just gave him a weary, wary smile. Demons felt family ties. She’d seen it during her time in the cells. Just as it wouldn’t be fair to ask Buffy to choose between her mother and her friends, it wasn’t fair to make Angel choose between his vampire family and her.

It was just another reason a romance between them had always been doomed.

Taking her eyes off Angel, Buffy turned to study the vampire that looked like Willow. Not-Willow stared unabashedly back, her features shifting rapidly back and forth between the human and vampire faces. Buffy’s vampire friend in the Initiative cells had done that when the soldiers were coming down the hall. When she was scared that it was her turn to be experimented on.

Buffy should have felt triumphant, that this vampire was afraid of her, but all she felt like was a bully. Trying on a friendly smile, Buffy groped for something to say, finally coming up with a weak, “Hey, Wills.”

“Spike,” Not-Willow said, never taking her eyes off of Buffy, “it’s talking to me.”

Spike snorted, probably amused, Buffy thought. “Now, now, Red,” he gently chided the younger vampire, wrapping an arm around her as if he, too, sensed she was frightened. “S’bad manners to refer to someone as an ‘it’. Leastwise, where they can hear you.”

He turned glittering eyes on Buffy and she felt herself flush. How many times had they reduced Spike to a tool, a thing, while expecting him to help?

She’d felt like a bully a few minutes ago. Now she knew she was one. Bad bad bully Buffy.

“Sorry,” Buffy muttered, not sure who she was talking to.

Unable to look the vamps in the face, Buffy returned to her perusal of Not-Willow, taking in her fashionable clothing. Either Spike was dressing her, or Willow’s taste had improved since her dea – Buffy shied away from finishing that thought.

Spike probably wasn’t dressing her. There’d be more leather involved. So. Not-Willow liked patterned dresses and knew how to accessorize. The blues and greens looked good with her complexion. Maybe they could go shopping one night.

Now there was a stupid idea.

“I like your dress, Willow,” she tried again, filled with an aching desire that Not-Willow talk to her. She probably needed therapy or something. Major therapy. Being trapped in the Initiative had clearly given her a permanent case of wiggins.

Not-Willow ignored her.

“She won’t answer to that.” The sound of Spike’s voice made Buffy twitch in surprise. Not that she’d forgotten he was there – her Slayer senses wouldn’t allow for that – but she was shocked that he was talking to her. Civilly even. “Goes by Red now.”

“Oh… um… Red, I like your dress.”

This time Not-Willow – Red – looked at her, with an almost accusatory glare.

“You fill my head with buzzing bees,” the red-haired vampire said.

“Oh. Sorry,” Buffy returned, feeling slightly more at ease now that the vampire was acknowledging her presence. Buffy had experienced a lot of wacky things since she turned fifteen, but being ignored by a vampire was a new one that she didn’t know quite how to deal with in a non-lethal manner. “It’s a Slayer thing. If it makes you feel any better, you make my teeth itch.”

Red laughed and then snapped her teeth at Buffy, laughing again when Buffy didn’t flinch. Settling into her game face, Red smiled. Buffy smiled back, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Have you missed me, sweet silly Buffy?” Red asked.

“I’ve missed Willow,” Buffy answered levelly – as levelly as she could. “But you aren’t her, are you?”

Red nodded. “Most of the time, no. Not in the way you mean,” she agreed, then went on to say, “But we can still be friends.”

The sudden quiet made Buffy aware that everyone in the room was watching them, waiting for her answer. The humans had looked up from the computer to call for her just in time to hear the odd exchange.

“We’ll see,” Buffy answered at last, feeling like the vampire would know if she lied. The truth was, right at this moment, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. “Maybe we can.”

**-l-**

Spike eyed the Slayer as she made that pronouncement, finding no trace of a lie in her voice or her scent. But it had been some time since he’d last seen the Slayer. Could be she’d gotten better at bluffing.

He sent a sense of question to Red through their bond, and received what amounted to a shrug in response. Red didn’t have a particular plan here. She was just playing with the Slayer to see where it went.

 _Fledges_ , Spike thought with a sigh, disregarding the fact that he gave into impulse quite often himself.

“Buffy,” the Watcher approached slowly, stiffening when Drusilla threw him what was probably supposed to be a flirtatious smile, but just came off as menacing. Spike suppressed a snort. “We can’t break through the protections on the disks. Riley was discussing the possibility of kidnapping someone who knows the security codes.”

This time, Spike let his contempt show.

“What is it, Spike?” the Watcher asked, his voice shaking with barely contained… malice? Annoyance? Spike didn’t care what it was, it was damned fun seeing the Watcher struggle to contain it.

“Well, well, look who’s playing nice all of a sudden. Now, would that be because I can get what you want off your bloody computer disks, or because you’re afraid if you brass me off I’ll let Dru have her way with you?”

The Watcher paled even as Dru clapped her hands in glee.

“Spike!” the Slayer snapped. “The truce!”

“Alright, alright, keep your knickers on,” he groused, thoroughly enjoying being the center of attention. He could feel the Great Poof’s subsonic growl, and that was more delicious than anything, knowing Angelus was holding his enormous arse back because if he attacked Spike, Red and Dru would be on him in a trice, and things would degenerate from there.

“Red, luv, do you want to play a game?”

The lovely vampire at his side looked up at him, her mouth quirked into a smirk that could melt the heart of the devil himself. She understood immediately what he was asking.

“Do I get a pressie if I win?” she inquired wickedly. Spike had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

“Course you do, princess. Would Brother propose a game without prizes for the winner?”

Red bounced on her feet, giving a little twirl. “What are the rules and what shall be my pressie when I win?”

At that moment Dru demanded that she be allowed to play too, and this time Spike couldn’t stop himself from laughing. That the humans were all staring at them in a mixture of bemusement and horror just made it funnier still.

“This game is just for Red, sire,” Spike told Dru gently. “It’s a game to help her learn. Besides, you mustn’t let the Watcher get lonely.”

Dru nodded at the apparent wisdom in that, as Spike had known she would, then took herself off to Giles’ side, wrapping one arm around his waist and picking him up with preternatural strength, as if he weighed no more than one of her dolls. “Just read to her, Rupes,” Spike called over his shoulder, shouting to be heard over the babble of the humans reacting to Dru manhandling the Watcher. “Keep her amused and she’ll not hurt you.”

The humans just seemed to flail about more at that. Damn, they let the least little things upset them. How’d they ever get anything done?

But then there came the Watcher’s voice, asking Dru if she’d like a cup of tea, and Dru’s enthusiastic reply that she’d love one. Spike knew then that the Watcher would be fine. Dru loved tea parties. Hell, maybe they _should_ turn him. Let him be the March Hare to Dru’s Mad Hatter.

“My pressie, Spike?” Red prompted, bringing Spike’s attention back to the task at hand.

“Ah, well. The game is this, luv.” He guided Red over to the computer and sat her down in front of it. “Make these,” he pointed to the disks, “spill all their secrets, so Brother can see their insides, and then you’ll have your pressie.”

“But what will be my pressie?” she persisted, pouting at him, laughter at the back of her eyes. Spike knew she was playing up the act for the benefit of the watching humans. But hey, he was enjoying himself too.

“What do you want, princess? Tell ol’ Spike.”

“A puppy!” Red chirped at once, her eyes on Xapper.

“Told you pet, no biting while we’re here, and I don’t think Demon Girl will be letting you have anything else. And she’s still demon enough it would be rude to ignore her prior claim on the boy.”

Demon Girl smiled at that, nodding to Spike. “Thank you.”

Spike just nodded back. He had no doubt Anyanka would get her power back one day, and he didn’t want to be on her shit list when she did.

“Hey, wait a minute,” the boy started to protest, only to squeak when Demon Girl dug her elbow into him.

“What else would you like, kitten?” Spike returned his attention to Red, glad to see that she’d had her fun and seemed to feel the humans were well convinced of her insanity. He was starting to get impatient. What if the way to turn his chip off was just sitting there on one of those disks?

Sensing his impatience, Red just smiled and said, “If I can’t have a puppy to play with, Brother, then I want you to be my pony. You look so lovely in nothing but chains, and taste so sweet.” She snapped her teeth and made a little mewling purr that added an extra note of vulgarity to her request.

Looking around at the stunned expressions of those around them, and the arousal that Peaches was trying to hide, Spike couldn’t decide what was funnier.

“You are a bad, wicked girl,” he purred into Red’s ear as she set to work on the files.

**-l-**

Drusilla left the next night at the insistence of the Slayer.

“It’s too dangerous, having her here,” Buffy pleaded with Red and Spike. “She makes Giles crazy and Xander homicidal. I can’t trust they won’t do something to her, and if something happens to her I _can_ trust that you two will have the wiggins to end all wiggins. So she goes.”

Angel escorted Dru to the city limits. Spike was relieved to see her go, but at the same time glad she had been there. There was peace in understanding things he hadn’t before. Sure, Dru had never loved Spike in the same way as Angelus, but she had still loved Spike. And she hadn’t stopped. What was it that Red was always saying?

_Mummy saw us in each other’s eyes._

He’d never realized how much Dru’s betrayal still hurt until the pain was smoothed away.

“So when’s the big night?” he asked the Slayer. He was sitting at a table in the Magic Box, looking at the floor plans of the Initiative compound. Red sat next to him, ostensibly playing pat-a-cake with her doll, but he knew that her sharp gaze was taking in all the details. They’d talk later, when they were alone, to be sure neither of them had missed anything spotted by the other.

“Next week, during the full moon,” Buffy supplied, addressing the whole room. Besides Spike, Red, and Peaches, there were a few more vamps, a couple of werewolves, some witches, and a solitary fear demon. “That way our wolf friends can do the most damage,” Buffy continued, nodding toward the corner where the wolves huddled.

They broke into clear factions every time they met to discuss what Spike had started to call _Operation: Ha Ha You’re Dead_. The Scoobies gathered around the Slayer like she would shield them from the rest of their ragtag band, the fear demon perched on the counter like a gargoyle, the wolves huddled together in a corner, looking twitchy and suspicious of the vampires (Spike blamed the movie _Underworld_ for that. Never had problems with werewolves before that movie came out.), the witches sat in a circle around their leader, blonde chit by the name of Tara, and the vampires outside of Spike’s family generally lurked around the edges of the room until Red or Spike indicated they wanted something from one of them.

They probably would have obeyed Angel too, as the oldest and most powerful vamp present, but the poof never asked them to do anything.

“Remember, we have to get to the release for the cages and deactivate all the chips before we set off the gas – ” the Soldier Boy was saying. What was his name? Ripley? Red would remember.

“Deactivate the chips?” Spike interrupted, the very definition of nonchalance. He was so nonchalant he could change his name to bloody Nonchalanto.

No one bought it for a second.

“Yes,” the Slayer looked him in the eye. “We’re deactivating all the chips.”

Spike didn’t have to ask why. He just stared, and the Slayer said, “Go on. Someone tell him.”

It was Anya who did it in the end, huffing when she realized no one else would. “Buffy has a chip too.”

And then Spike knew that he had something in common with the Slayer. She looked in his eyes, and she saw herself reflected back, and she was disgusted, but that was alright. Because he was a killer and that’s what he’d always be, but she was one too and now she knew it. That slaying wasn’t just slaying, and maybe it was war, but war was murder, and in the end she was the Big Bad of someone else’s story.

Then Buffy looked at Red, and an odd understanding came over the three of them, and Spike knew that he would never kill this Slayer. Buffy would fight, and she would win, and they would all live through this assault on the Initiative, but one day, when she was tired and ready to go, she would find the two of them, and she would have the kind of death Slayers were meant to have – crushed in the jaws of a monster in the dark.

But the monster would be her friend Willow, and the last thing she would see would be _A Belo Morte_.

Their moment was fleeting. Spike blinked and it was gone, and they were all back to discussing timing and corridors and guard routes. But it was real, and it had happened, and for just a second on a hot summer night in Sunnydale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and William the Bloody were thinking exactly the same thing.

And they were both happy about it.

**-l-**

Red and Spike stayed in Angel’s old mansion while they waited for the big night. To Red’s annoyance, Angel followed them there every morning, a look of longing on his face that made him seem even more like a puppy than usual. She was annoyed by his presence because it meant she couldn’t talk to Spike without speaking in insane riddles, and more than that, the parts of her that were still Willow hated him for everything Angelus had done to William, to Spike, and surprisingly, to Buffy. Red hated him for taking her away from Drusilla.

But to her chagrin, Spike didn’t chase Angel off, though he commented that it was nice to be with someone who didn’t think the sun shone out of Angel’s ass. When they finally had a moment alone, she got him to explain.

“He’s here as much for us as he is for him, luv. If he weren’t with us, the Slayer would get jumpy about whether we were keeping up our end of the truce. The not biting and all. So long as the poof babysits us, she’s got no call to be suspicious.”

That was true enough. They’d never have any fun with their gloomy Granddaddy hanging around, brooding so loud it made Red’s head hurt.

By unspoken agreement, neither of Spike nor Red mentioned the odd moment they had shared with Buffy, but both thought of it often. Red waited with dark anticipation for the day when Slayer blood would slip down her throat and she would watch the light in Buffy’s eyes go out. The little piece of Willow that was left was just glad that she and Buffy were, in some strange way, still friends.

**-l-**

Unable to help herself, Red went to her parent’s house one evening, unsurprisingly finding it empty. There was a ‘For Sale’ sign in the yard. Apparently the Rosenbergs had given up the pretense of living here now that ‘Willow’ was gone.

Testing a theory, Red tried to enter, and found that she could. It seemed that no one called this house a home, so she didn’t need an invitation.

She went immediately to her old room and dug through boxes until she found one filled with her old ugly, fuzzy clothes.

Smiling, she took it with her.

**-l-**

Spike was smoking in the garden of the mansion when Red turned the corner, coming into his line of sight.

Only she wasn’t Red. She was Willow all over, dressed up in a pink fuzzy sweater with flowers on it and a mismatched green plaid skirt with tights and sneakers. He could even smell her old human smell, mingling with the sweet scent of Red the vampire, and knew that those clothes must have been ones she’d worn when she was alive.

He raised a brow, not sure what game she was playing.

Red smiled a seductive smile, and then her face got small, and scared, and uncertain. “Spike!” she gasped.

She screamed, and ran from him.

Thinking he couldn’t possibly love this woman more if he tried, Spike rose and gave chase.

**-l-**

A few days before the planned attack on the Initiative, Angel was waiting for Spike when he entered the mansion.

“Where’s Willow?” the older vampire demanded, when he saw Spike was alone.

“Red’s out,” Spike answered, emphasizing the vampiress’ chosen name. “Why?”

Angel grimaced.

“Xander was by earlier. It was his turn to bring us blood. He was injured. Not bad. Said it was in a skirmish with a fledge, and I did smell vamp dust on him, but Willow, the look on her face…”

Several tendrils of thought clicked into place, and Spike stiffened, feeling as if he’d been struck in the top of the head. “Stay here!” he ordered Angel, knowing the poof would just make things worse.

Then Spike dashed out the door, glad that Xapper’s parents were unlikely to have moved since Spike was last a guest in their basement.

**-l-**

When he got there, Red already had the mother hypnotized and out in the yard, swaying from side to side.

“Let me in, let me in, invite me to see your new big TV,” Red was crooning to the woman.

“What the hell woman! Close the door, you’re letting the AC out,” Mr. Harris shouted from inside the house.

“Don’t do this, Red,” Spike ordered as he skidded to a stop on the sidewalk, trying to draw her attention. “Not now. Not when we’re so close to buggering the Initiative. We’ll come back and do them before we leave town, proper like, so that we won’t have to duck the Slayer.”

Red turned to look at him, and Spike was taken aback at how much Willow was shining out of her eyes.

“Come on, Red. I’ve taught you better than this. Leash the demon, luv, and we’ll get them on the way out of town. We’ll take the boy too, and turn him, and he’ll be your best friend for fucking ever, alright?”

He couldn’t let her do this. Not now, when it would bring so much attention and could deprive him of life free from the chip. He realized in this moment how much he’d spoiled her. He’d always been careful before, about where he took her. This was the first time it really truly mattered if she defied him. They’d have to hit the road before the bodies cooled, if they were going to avoid the wrath of the Slayer and all her little allies. And there’d be no hiding who’d done for the boy’s parents, not if any of them had half a brain.

Red snarled, and Spike gentled his voice, trying to gauge if he could get to her and pin her down before she could gut the woman. “I’m sorry, luv. I’m a bad, rude man. But we need to play nice a bit longer. Come on away from there and I’ll find you a nice rapist to eat, alright? Slayer won’t mind that.”

“Willow? Fangless? Mom… what’s… what’s going on?”

And just bloody _fantastic_ , now Xapper was joining the party, coming up out of the basement door.

“They’ll never hurt you again!” Willow snarled, her eyes gone entirely black with magic.

Xapper flinched, turning an interesting range of colors, before an expression of determination came across his face.

“Get back in the basement, boy,” Spike urged him softly. “She’s not in control of the demon now. She might hurt you too.”

The boy looked at Red for a long moment, then shook his head. “She won’t hurt me.”

Spike went through every curse he knew in every language he’d ever heard in his head, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to think up a way to handle this that ended with everyone happy and the attack on the Initiative moving forward as planned.

The boy was still talking. Something about how he could never be afraid of Willow, even scary vampire black-eyed Willow, and they’d always love each other, and there was mention of a yellow crayon, and at that point Spike gave up even trying to follow and just accepted that he was surrounded by nutters. There was a rush of air as Red blew past, heading right for the boy. Spike mentally reviewed the best places to stash bodies in Sunnyhell and plotted the ways he’d punish Red for this.

When he opened his eyes again, Red was crying tears of blood, and Xapper was holding her, and Mrs. Harris was standing there with her mouth open, still caught in the power of Red’s thrall.

Well. Hoorah for the bloody yellow crayons then.

“Go put her right, luv,” Spike urged Red after several minutes, when he judged the moment to be right and Red to be back in control of her demon. He gestured to Mrs. Harris. “Put her back and make her forget we were ever here.”

Red nodded to him, and thankfully went to do as she was told, leaving Spike standing with Xapper.

“We can kill ‘em on our way out of town, if you want,” Spike offered, to fill the silence. “Just can’t let her do it now.”

Xapper gave him a strange look, finally answering, “Thanks, but that’s ok.”

More silence.

“I thought it was the bits of Willow left in the vampire that was making her save all those kids,” Spike started again. Xapper looked at him. “She gets the kids out, then she does whatever was done to the kids to the parents. I thought it was a bit of Willow, needing to be a hero. But now I get it.”

“What?”

“Your parents abused you, right?” Spike took out a fag, lighting up with one smooth, practiced motion. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I was right about it being a bit of Willow. But it’s not about being a hero. It’s about saving you.” Spike blew a plume of smoke into the night air. “Every night, she goes out there and saves you.”

Spike could hear the human’s breath hitch. He didn’t turn to look at him. He just smoked, eyes on the door, waiting for Red to come back.

“Spike?”

He was surprised to be called by his name. He hid it with a puff of his cig. “Yeah?”

“Thanks. For being there for her. And not just tonight.”

“You’re welcome… Xander.”

Red came out, and the two vampires left after Xander extracted a promise that they wouldn’t kill his parents without his permission, a conversation that brought a wry twist to Spike’s lips.

 _One thing’s for sure_ , he thought as Red tucked her arm into his, the pair of them gliding silently through the night. _Not letting her turn Xander now. Be an idiot to set myself up to compete with that._

**-l-**

At last, the night of the full moon arrived.

They all knew their places. The witches cast some big mojo to cut the lights and the cameras in the Initiative facility. The vamps took out the guards. The wolves transformed and were set loose in the frat house barracks to tear as many soldiers apart as they could. The fear demon was a battering ram, tearing through doors like tissue paper. And the Scoobies followed Buffy, setting captives free and working their way toward the facility control room.

Red hypnotized any humans that got too close to Buffy or Spike, horrifying the Scoobies when she tore a man’s throat out with a bloodthirsty howl. Seeing their looks, she said simply, “What? Vampire. Evil,” as Spike himself had said so many times during his stay with the White Hats. Spike further horrified them by licking blood from Red’s lips, though the most horrifying was Anyanka’s mumbled, “That’s hot.”

Finally, after wrecking a series of computer labs and operating rooms filled with sinister instruments, they reached their goal: The main control room for the whole facility, the hub that controlled all the space age gadgets and gizmos.

In the end, Spike getting his bite back was rather anticlimactic. The Scoobies asked Red if she’d like to play a game, and let her have at the main computer. The first thing she did was enter a command that deactivated every behavior modification chip within range of the computer’s signal. Spike was just about to test and see if it had worked by taking a swing at the Soldier Boy, but then a sterile voice informed them that the compound’s self-destruct protocol had been activated, and they all had to run for it.

**-l-**

Buffy was sad and relieved when Not-Willow and Spike came to say goodbye to all of them. She was glad they were going, because she really didn’t want to stake Not-Willow however messed up that feeling was, but she felt like she should have…

She wasn’t sure what she should have. Just that there was sadness and relief-ness and not a little weirdness.

Red and Spike did some bizarre vampire dad goodbye thing with Angel that made Angel look like he had indigestion, and then Spike hung back and let Red approach the humans. Buffy watched her closely, ready to intervene if the kooky vampire did anything sketchy.

She offered to make Giles a vampire and said something about a gift for her Mummy. Giles sputtered and Buffy shuddered, promising herself to be on the lookout for Drusilla. Then Red hugged Xander, which was actually kind of sweet until Xander eeped and cried out, “Hands! Hands don’t go there!” Spike snarled at Xander like it was his fault somehow, and Buffy gave him her very best “Behave or I’ll Stake You” glare. Next, Red and Anya shared a mutual nod that made it seem like they understood each other. But then with Anya’s ex-demonness and Red’s current demonness, maybe they did.

And then it was Buffy’s turn.

Red stood in front of Buffy for a long time, not saying anything. She didn’t even seem to be breathing. It was pretty creepy, and Buffy had been creeped on by the best.

Then Red held out a little cloth ragdoll that Buffy hadn’t noticed before. “When you’re ready, burn it. We’ll know, and we’ll come.”

Buffy took the doll with nerveless fingers. “And everyone else?” she asked, trying to be vague enough that no one would question what they were talking about.

“Tell them to wear the _Santa Senhora Sagramento_ ,” Spike said, coming forward to put his arm around Red.

Buffy met his eyes.

“This is the last time you’ll see us, Slayer,” he promised her.

But his eyes did some weird thing, and Red’s eyes turned black, and Buffy heard in her head, _This is the last time you’ll see us until you call for the beautiful death._

And maybe that should have been the oogiest of the oogie, but all Buffy felt was peace.

“Goodbye,” she told them.

**-l-**

Red and Spike left Sunnydale. Red drove the Mustang, all the times she had studied Spike shifting gears and using the clutch paying off. She only stalled the car once.

They stopped at a truck stop a few hours before dawn. Red went in to scope the place out, and pay for the gas first. She could probably figure out how to turn the gas pumps on and off, but it was easier just to have the clerk do it.

“There’s three men inside,” she reported to Spike once she’d pumped the gas, looking at him in mock seriousness. “Now, I need you to listen to me, my prince.”

Spike smiled at her sweetly, the expression only lasting a fraction of a second before it turned into a smirk. “I’m listening, Red.”

Red giggled. “This time, I’ll hold the doors.”

Spike kissed her and turned toward the building, and the humans within. “Be right back, baby,” he said.

Red watched him swagger into the truck stop. She waited until she heard the first scream before she followed, grabbing the handles of the doors with hands like iron bands.

Spike drained all of the bloodbags, but Red didn’t mind. It was his special night. He came out of the truck stop with a grin on his face and a tiny foam finger for Rose.

“Let’s go home, my love,” Spike said, his face flush with blood, a predatory spark in his eyes that had been missing for far too long.

Red smiled, turned up the radio, and pointed the Mustang toward Fortaleza.

_Cause look how things have gotten._

_And I'll be happy so I won't pretend._

_And I'll be cheering that you're going down._

_And I'll be laughing._

_Ha Ha you're dead._

_And I'm so happy._

_In loving memory_

_Of your demise._

_When your ship is going down_

_I'll go out and paint the town._

_Ha Ha you're dead._

_Ha Ha you're dead._

_Ha Ha you're dead._

**End Notes:**

Thank you for reading! I had a lot of fun with this. I’ve been a lurky Spillow shipper for about 10ish years now, and had this fic kicking around in my head for about 3ish years, so I thought it was finally time I gave a little back. I was really surprised at how long it turned out, as I was planning on something shorter than even the first chapter of this turned out.

All chapter titles were either song lyrics or the names of bands.

All featured bands and song lyrics are bands/songs I think Spike would like based on his canonical enjoyment of punk rock and the Sex Pistols.

The song in the final part is _Ha Ha You’re Dead_ by Greenday.

Concrit is welcome. I didn’t have a beta on this, so feel free to politely alert me to any typos.


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